The previous record of 31.5C was set in Ballybrittas, Co Laois in 1975 and again in Oak Park in 1995. 

A status yellow high-temperature warning is currently in place for the entire country. Met Éireann is warning it will be "very warm or hot on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with maximum temperatures generally of 27C to 30C and locally higher".

The warning is in place until 6am on Monday.

Speaking earlier today, Gerry Murphy, a senior forecaster at Met Éireann, told RTÉ radio that there is "really hot weather" in store for the next few days.

"Temperatures did get over 30C yesterday. And we can expect those temperatures to go possibly higher today and certainly higher in few places tomorrow.

"Certainly parts of the southern half of Leinster, the midlands and parts of Munster will be getting the highest temperatures."

Mr Murphy said we will see a change on Sunday in that temperatures will be slightly lower. However, it still looks like it will be "quite hot."

"As we go through Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening we will see showers breaking out across the country. And some of those could be quite heavy. Temperatures will drop back then on Monday to the low 20s. And then on Tuesday to the high teens and low 20. So we will see much more average weather."

Meanwhile, Cathal Nolan, UCC climate scientist and weather analyst, told The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk that what is unusual this year is that we have had two occasions in which temperatures are likely to exceed 30C.

"It is pretty rare in an Irish sense and looking at the temperatures today it is likely we will breach the thirty-degree barrier again. The all-time August record is potentially at risk.

"2005 and 2006 were two good summers and we had the heatwave conditions we experienced in 2018.

"What we are looking at from a climatological point of view is looking at these individual cases where we have temperature extremes and looking at the latest guidance and research.

"It does seem to be that we are experiencing more of these types of conditions whereby we get temperatures breaching all-time records.

"We experienced 33.1C already this year in Phoenix Park which was the highest temperature recorded in a hundred years in Ireland.

"It is likely over the next couple of years we will see the all-time record being broken. That does seem to be on the cards."

Irish Water preparing for 'challenging' weekend

It comes as Irish Water has warned that 37 water supplies around the country are now officially in drought with dozens more in potential drought.

The National Incident Management Team at Irish Water has been meeting this morning to discuss the "escalating" situation.

Head of Asset Operations at Irish Water, Tom Cuddy, told RTÉ radio that the numbers in drought are likely to increase.

"The weekend in particular is going to continue to be challenging. We have no rain at the moment. It is very hot and it is going to be ongoing. We have a rainfall deficit here today. The ground is very dry. Rivers are very low.

"Demand is extremely high. In the urban areas in the Greater Dublin area, the usage is over 40 million litres greater per day today than this day last week. In holiday resorts and agricultural areas, it is much higher."

Mr Cuddy said that they can undertake short-term interventions to make up the difference between supply and demand. However, that is not a realistic long-term strategy.

"We are taking quite a number of interventions. For example we are tankering water from supplies that have sufficient in to supplies that are in deficit. We can reduce the pressure on the overall network. We are doing quite a bit which is having little impact on people."

Drier summers; wet winters

Mr Nolan said the flip side is that arising out of climate change we are looking at experiencing more wet winters.

"We are likely to see drier summers. But the flip side is that we are expecting to see an increase in terms of winter precipitation."

Kevin Rahill, RNLI Safety Lead, urged members of the public on the same show to go to beaches which have lifeguards.

"The key thing is if you can go to a lifeguarded beach or waterway. It is the best place to go because there is of course supervision. They (the lifeguards) will also put the flags out to make sure people stay away from some of the local dangers but I suppose not everywhere is lifeguarded.

"There are a number of things people can do to ensure that they stay safe. One is ideally try to swim within your depth. If things do go wrong you can stand up and wake out. Rips are very common on beaches. They are not always very easy to see.

"Rips tend to form where there are differences of depth or they form around land-based structures like piers or walls. But if you do find yourself caught in a rip it is very hard to swim against it. It is not worth trying.

"The trick is if you feel you are being dragged out swim parallel to the shore until you feel you are not being dragged out again. Then you can swim ashore."

He also said that cold water shock can still occur amid high temperatures.