The hot water bottle will be essential.

Temperatures will drop to an icy -2 degrees tonight (Thursday, January 20th) though the weekend ahead will be relatively tolerable.

According to Met Éireann’s latest regional forecast for Munster, today is expected to be the archetypal winter’s day — bright, cold and frosty, with temperatures between six and nine degrees. When the frost clears there will be plenty of sunshine.

Tomorrow will be colder again, with temperatures no higher than eight degrees, with a mix of sunny and cloudy spells once the morning’s fog and frost both clear. Again, there is the chance that night-time temperatures will fall as low as -1.

Saturday will see drizzle mostly confined to the Atlantic coast with the sunniest weather in the southeast. Unfortunately, we may see drizzle become more persistent along the south coast, as temperatures hold at a chilly six-to-nine degrees. The night will be slightly less bitter, with temperatures at least expected to remain above zero.

The weekend will finish up with “another dry and cloudy day for most, just occasional bright spells developing but with some patchy drizzle occurring on Atlantic and southern coastal areas.” There will be no rain for Cork in the evening, as temperatures once again fall into the region of between one and five degrees.