NI faces week of record temperatures - public urged to reduce water usage

Q Radio News/PA

Northern Ireland is facing a week of record-breaking temperatures, forecasters have predicted.

As the region basks in a July heatwave, the Met Office said temperatures could rise above 30C on Wednesday and Thursday.

Northern Ireland recorded a provisional record high temperature on Saturday, when the mercury hit 31.2C in Ballywatticock close to Newtownards in Co Down at 3.40pm.

Previously, the highest temperature of 30.8C was recorded on July 12 1983 and June 30 1976.

But, it is possible the new record may be exceeded within days.

John Wylie, from the Met Office, said that engineers would be checking the equipment at Ballywatticock over coming days to validate the record temperature.

He added: "Temperature records these days are a big deal, we need to make sure, double check the equipment is working correctly.

“Nothing at the site has changed from the last visit that we made when servicing the site months ago, so it is just to double check and then we have got to compare that value with temperatures around the site as well.

“At the moment we are not seeing anything which would suspect that particular value but we definitely need to visit the site. That is standard procedure.”

He continued: “The record has stood since 1976 and 1983. This beat it by almost half a degree.

Neill Russell and his wife, Liz, from Dunmurry, walk their dog Teddy along a pathway exposed by the falling water level at Spelga Reservoir in the Mourne Mountains. Northern Ireland Water has asked the public to reduce water use as the system is under extreme pressure due to an increase in demand over recent days

Sun worshippers have been flocking to beaches and beauty spots amid the heatwave.

Police described traffic congestion in the popular coastal towns of Helen’s Bay and Crawfordsburn in Co Down at the weekend. The road into Helen’s Bay was closed to all but residents on Sunday afternoon as crowds flocked to the beach.

Police in north Antrim ran out of fixed penalty notices when responding to reports of traffic congestion at the scenic Ballintoy Harbour.

The PSNI said 30 drivers on Sunday were issued with fixed penalty notices for a range of parking offences.

PSNI Causeway Coast and Glens said on Facebook: “Unfortunately for around 30 drivers it wasn’t an all pleasant sunny day.

“All of these drivers were issued with fixed penalty notices for a number of offences… As well as this we were also trying to assist with the facilitation of a funeral which needed to get down to Balintoy Church.

“Unfortunately, we ran out of tickets after we emptied the third ticket book.”

NI Water has urged the public to urgently reduce water usage to avoid shortages.

Director of customer operations Des Nevin said if the current demand continues, it will lead to failures in the system and some customers will lose supply.