A status yellow alert affects 20 counties in the midlands, west, and south until Friday morning.

Current indications are for a return to more unsettled conditions for the long weekend, with some rain and showers forecast. Highest daytime temperatures falling back to the mid to high teens.

It will be dry to begin on Saturday with a few bright spells early on in the east. However, it will become increasingly cloudy from the west, with rain and drizzle moving into west Ulster, Connacht and west Munster.