It's hot in Dunsany! Temperature top 30 degrees at Met Eireann outpost

Met Éireann confirmed that new temperature records were set at a number of locations across the country yesterday including Dunsany which reached a sizzling 30.2 degrees on what has been the hottest day of the year so far.

The forecaster said this month has seen “multiple” local temperature records being provisionally broken at various stations nationwide, including at the recording station at Grange.

It comes as temperatures in Dublin hit 33C, smashing July records and making yesterday the hottest day of the year for the 21st and 20th century as a mini-heatwave gripped Ireland.

Meanwhile a weather station in Trim recorded 33.4 degrees at 1.06pm on Monday. This is 0.1 degrees above that highest temperature recorded at Kilkenny Castle in 1887, the previous highest temperature on record for Ireland.

However, a Met Éireann spokesman said although the Trim station is connected to its Weather Observations Website (WOW), it is not an official one and the record will not count.

The Phoenix Park weather station reached a number of milestones, most recently by provisionally recording its highest temperature since data was first recorded in the early 1800s, when it reached 33.1C at around 3.30pm yesterdayafternoonsw (Monday).

Emeritus Professor John Sweeney, a climatologist at Maynooth University, said it was an "historic day for Irish climate".

Speaking on RTE News, Prof Sweeney said what we are seeing in Ireland is part of a larger picture of increasing extremes and increasing temperatures, and climate change is the driving factor.

It has been an "exceptional summer" across the globe, he said.

"What we're seeing is a pattern of global increases in extreme events, which is what we have been saying in the climate science community – it's going to be the harbinger, if you like, of much more extreme events in the future which will be more severe and more frequent."