Friday will be the last hot day of the present spell with the prospect of fresher weather after this weekend.Thursday was a hot day with a high temperature of 29.7 degrees at Oak Park in Co Carlow.However, Ireland was spared the heat that hit England, with Kew Gardens in London recording a high for the year of 38.1 degrees.Several homes caught fire as firefighters attempted to contain a grass fire in England’s West Midlands. The region’s fire service was alerted to an extensive grass fire near Stourbridge golf course just before 1.30pm on Thursday.About 60 firefighters responded to the blaze, covering about 40 acres. Images released by the fire service show the fire spreading into nearby woodland and homes.In Ireland, parts of the southeast and east coast will see temperatures of up to 26 degrees on Friday. It will be warmest in the Dublin area, but will be notably cooler than of late elsewhere.It will feel humid in eastern parts but much fresher along the western seaboard with temperatures between 18 and 20 degrees in Donegal, Mayo, Clare and Kerry.The weekend will feel warm, but not as hot as recent days, with highs of 22 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday.There is little end in sight for the drought conditions that are having a serious impact on farmers in the southeast and east of the country.Many livestock farmers are feeding their animals winter silage because of the lack of grass growth. Tillage farmers are also suffering, with potato and vegetable yields likely to be way down this year.Irish Farmers’ Association president Francie Gorman described the drought conditions as “unprecedented”, with many places getting no rain at all this summer.Soil moisture deficits range from 70 to 100mm in the south and east, where they are in near-drought or drought conditions.Met Éireann forecaster Siobhan Ryan said there is little prospect of areas worst affected by drought getting any substantial rain over the coming week. There will be a “minute” amount of rain in the southeast and east over the coming weekend, with the chance of light showers on Monday and Tuesday. “Rainfall will be very scattered if it happens at all,” she said. “There may be patchy showers, but little or no rainfall.”There is a possibility of rain on Thursday across the south coast, but it is uncertain whether it brings rainfall any further north. “There is a lot of uncertainty later next week and nothing definitive,” she said.Next week’s forecast will see between 40 per cent and 60 per cent of normal rainfall for western counties, but the rest of the country is only likely to get 10 per cent of the rainfall of normal.