The warm weather is expected to continue over the whole bank holiday weekend, forecasters say.
Met Éireann is forecasting top temperatures of 20 degrees or more for most of the country over the coming days.
While people are being encouraged to enjoy the sunshine, gardaí will also be patrolling parks, beaches and beauty spots today to make sure people are sticking to the current public health guidelines.
Alan O'Reilly from Carlow Weather told Newstalk Breakfast with Susan Keogh that good weather is expected right across the country this bank holiday weekend.
He said: "I suppose the south and the south-east coast will see the lowest of the temperatures, but you're still talking about touching 20 degrees.
"It will be a little bit hazy, and there might be a little bit of cloud along the west coast, but generally it's wall-to-wall sunshine."
He explained that the Midlands is likely to be the warmest region today, with temperatures of up to 26 or 27 degrees.
Such conditions are set to continue through the long weekend, right through Monday - with Alan saying it's set to be an 'absolutely glorious weekend'.
Alan noted that most areas are unlikely to see a heatwave under the usual meteorological criteria.
However, he observed: "We have to remember that the meteorological season of summer is only starting on Monday - from a weather point of view summer hasn't even started yet.
"It could turn much, much cooler as we do start summer - the weather models are suggesting that by the middle of the week we could be back down to 16 or 17 degrees."
He noted there's been a 'remarkable spell of dry weather' since March, but told Susan: "It may present some issues.
"While we all want to enjoy the bank holiday weekend, we do no need rainfall soon or we're going to start running into some problems - not just for farmers, but also water levels.
"If we were to get a dry June now on drop of a dry spring, we could look at some serious water shortages."
He also explained that the dry weather has led to an increased risk of gorse fires, and that the public needs to be "very, very careful" with the likes of barbecues.
