Met Éireann has said that the weather will be mainly dry, settled and cold this weekend with some isolated showers in places.

The weather forecast shows that today (Friday, February 7) will be cold and frosty to start, with mist and fog patches.

It will be a dry day with sunny spells away from the south at first, but cloud will later increase.

There will be highest afternoon temperatures of 4°  to 7° C, in light to moderate easterly winds.

It will be cold tonight with widespread frost and icy patches. Mainly dry overnight, apart from some isolated light showers in the east, with light and variable winds.

Lowest temperatures of -4° to 1° generally, but not feeling as cold in the east.

Saturday morning will be cold, dry and bright, cloudy conditions will persist in the east with some isolated light showers there.

The cloud will increase in most parts of the country as the day progresses, the odd sunny break will still occur.

Highest afternoon temperatures of 4° to 7° in a light northeasterly breeze.

It will be mainly dry on Saturday night with a mixture of cloud and clear spells, isolated showers in the east and south.

Frost and icy stretches will form in some parts as temperatures dip to overnight lows of between -2°  and 3°, in a light northeasterly breeze.

Sunday will be another mainly dry and cloudy day, some light showers are possible along eastern and southern coasts. Highest temperatures of 5° to 8° with light to moderate easterly winds.

It will be largely dry and cloudy on Sunday night, again with some light showers on southern and eastern coasts. Lowest temperatures of 3° to 6° with moderate easterly winds.

On Monday, it will be cloudy and breezy with outbreaks of rain in the northeast and southwest. Highest temperatures of 4° to 9°, in moderate to fresh east to southeast winds.

The dry weather is set to continue in most areas on Tuesday, but there may be patchy rain in the southwest.

Highest temperatures of 4° to 6°, with moderate to fresh east to southeast winds, which will ease later in the day.

Met Éireann said that it will be substantially drier than average for the rest of the week with most stations expected to recorded 1mm or below.

However, some southern coastal stations in the south may record high single figure amounts.

The coming week is set to be colder than average with some frosty nights.

Mean air temperatures are expected to range between 3° and 5° for most areas, a little milder near southern and northern coasts. Mean soil temperatures will decrease.

Although it will be largely dry and sunny for the coming days, the cold conditions and light winds will inhibit drying.

There will be good opportunities for spraying through much of the rest of the week.

Met Éireann said that all poorly drained soils and most moderately drained soils are either waterlogged or close to it while other soils are saturated. There will be some slight improvements in the soils over the coming week.