Met Éireann has placed Cork, Kerry, Waterford and Wexford under a Status Yellow rain warning running from 04:00 to 11:00 on Sunday, 27 September.

The 7-hour window brings heavy, thundery rain with localised flooding, poor visibility and difficult travelling conditions across the four southern and south-eastern counties.

What does the warning cover?

The alert activates at 04:00 on Sunday and lifts at 11:00 the same morning. The four affected counties sit along Ireland's southern and south-eastern seaboard:

• Cork
• Kerry
• Waterford
• Wexford

Met Éireann expects heavy thundery rain through the window, with thunderstorms embedded in the system.

Why does the timing matter for arable fieldwork?

Sunday sits in a narrow gap between a workable Saturday and an unsettled run into Monday. For winter cereal drilling, fields hit by heavy rain on wet soils will lose a combining or spraying slot. Waterlogged tramlines and headlands will rule out traffic until at least Monday on heavier land. Any remaining pre-emergence residuals, cover crop establishment or late stubble cultivations will need to wait.

Friday offers the dry window. It begins mostly cloudy but mainly dry with isolated showers, then brightens from the west through the morning and afternoon with sunny spells developing. Evening showers turn more frequent and heavier in western and north-western parts.

What coastal impacts have been flagged?

Wexford faces a compounding risk. Met Éireann warned: "the combination of spring tides, surge and strong onshore winds may result in wave overtopping along the Wexford coastline." On low-lying tillage near the coast, that raises spray run-off and ponding risk over and above the rainfall itself.

The same Met Éireann update lists three specific impacts from the rainfall event: localised flooding, poor visibility and difficult travelling conditions.

What is the wider weekend outlook?

• Friday night: clear spells and showers, some heavy, mainly in the north and west.
• Saturday: sunny spells and scattered showers before cloud builds in the west and north through the afternoon and evening.
• Saturday night: rain develops in western and southern areas, turning heavy at times and extending north-eastwards overnight.
• Sunday: outbreaks of rain for many, clearing north-eastwards by afternoon to scattered showers and sunny spells.

What should arable growers watch next?

The Friday brightening gives one workable spray or combining day in the south-east before the cloud builds back on Saturday afternoon. Growers should weigh final fungicide and pre-emergence residual slots against the Sunday clearance and any upgrade from Met Éireann to an Orange-level alert.

Saturated land through Sunday afternoon will push field operations into Monday or later, particularly on clay and clay-loam soils in Wexford and Waterford. Slug pressure is also likely to climb in any winter cereal drilled ahead of this system once conditions warm again next week. Watch the Met Éireann warnings page through Saturday evening for any extension of the Yellow window or shifts in the alert area.