​Even more good weather ahead for Northern Ireland this week - as an unusually sunny Spring continues

It was great weather for the estimated 100,000 spectators who attended the International North West 200 motorbike races on the North Coast on Saturday. They enjoyed clear skies and temperatures of around 20 degrees around the Portstewart, Coleraine and Portrush circuit.

It’s good news for the week ahead. Despite a wet, cloudy day expected on Monday, the rest of week will see more sunshine with temperatures around 20 degrees celcius expected by Tuesday.

Heavy pulses of rain were expected on Sunday night and into Monday morning, Met Office meteorologist Jonathan Vautrey told the News Letter.

“They will tend to clear first thing in the morning as they move off towards parts of western Scotland, but there will still be some lingering bits of rain, particularly the eastern counties of Antrim and Down.

“Some of those showers will linger into the start of Monday, an it will be generally quite cloudy”, he said.

The cloud will hold temperatures back around 16 degrees celsius across the nation – but it’s a generally improving picture heading into Tuesday and the rest of the week.

“The area of low pressure that is bringing some of these showers is going to drift off towards the south and allow high pressure to build in, once again, quite widely, not just across Northern Ireland, but also across the vast majority of the UK.

“So from Tuesday onwards, we are likely to see increasing amounts of widespread sunshine. Temperatures will respond to that, likely pushing past the 20 degrees celsius threshold on Tuesday. 21 degrees celsius is possible in a few spots. And then we'll hold on to those fine conditions throughout the second half of the week as well”, the Met Office official said.

Mr Vautrey said Northern Ireland has already had much more spring sunshine than would normally be expected by this time of year – with all six counties ahead of average. However, as yet, this spring hasn’t reached the top 10 brightest on record.

Rainfall is down on the spring averages, with each county around 40-50 per cent of what would normally be expected at this point in the season – where it would normally be by at 75 per cent by mid-May.

The NI Fire and Rescue Service, police and department of environment officials had warned of a risk of wildfires over the weekend as the dry weather continued – as they asked everyone to be vigilant, saying the potential hazard risk is high.

Last week a huge fire in Counties Tyrone and Monaghan ripped through approximately a third of a precious protected site which includes a Special Area of Conservation for the endangered Hen Harrier as well as important blanket bog habitat, minister Andrew Muir said.

Across the country heavy showers and thunderstorms have been forecast across England and Wales – with a yellow Met Office weather warning in place for the east of England on Monday afternoon.