Say good-bye to autumn - Irish weather forecasters are warning that temperatures will plunge and parts of Ireland experience wintry showers this week.

Sleet and snow are in the forecast for Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Wednesday in the northwest and Connacht, the Irish Independent reports. Weather will be dry, but frosty in the east, and snow will not present any problems "on the ground."

“It’s meant to be colder. The temperatures are definitely going to take a drop,” said forecaster John Eagleton.

“There’ll be showers from Monday. It’ll be dry in the East but there’ll be northwesterly wintry showers, and on the hills there’ll be snow, but I don’t see it being a problem on the ground.”

 “It’ll be nothing extreme. Today is around 11 or 12 degrees [52-54F]; tomorrow it’s to be a degree less than that. And then on Monday it’ll be between six and eight degrees [43-46F].”

Temperatures are expected to plummet to zero [32F] at night next week, according to Met Eireann.

“There will be sleet and snow in the northwest, but it’s going to be dry down here. The winds will be northwesterly, and we don’t see a lot of activity on the east coast.”

“There’ll be frost at night. Temperatures at night from Monday will be zero, but it’ll be nothing exceptional.”

“We wouldn’t say there’ll definitely be snow showers. But it’ll be cold next week with occasional wintry showers.”