Santa begins his journey, as Met Éireann predicts 'excellent' sleigh-flying conditions over Cork

With Santa and his reindeers already beginning their epic annual journey around the world to bring gifts to all the good girls and boys, Met Éireann is predicting the skies over Cork will offer mostly excellent sleigh-flying conditions tonight.

It won’t be a white Christmas in Ireland this year, but Santa and the lads will see every possible type of weather as they make their way around the world tonight.

According to various bodies which track Santa’s movements throughout Christmas Eve and Christmas Night, Santa set out on the dot of 9am this morning from his headquarters in the North Pole, racing against the night as Christmas spreads across the globe.

According to Unicef, there are an estimated 2,415,319,658 children in the world, and Santa will visit each of them before dawn on Christmas Day.

As always, his sleigh will be pulled through the night sky by his team of reindeer, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and led, as always, by Rudolph with his nose so bright.

According to tech giant Google, which is tracking Santa’s sleigh, it took off from the North Pole, where flying conditions were said to be excellent, and then, a little while later, it was spotted dashing through the snow in the skies over the Chukotka region in far east Russia, where the temperature is a chilly -18 degrees.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is a joint defence partnership between the United States and Canada and the United States, and it too is tracking Santa and his reindeer.

Google says Santa and his team were spotted in the skies over the Republic of Kiribati, a tropical collection of islands in the South Pacific, just after 10am, while Google has reported that they were seen arriving just after 10.30am at the Marshall Islands, where the temperature is a balmy nighttime temperature of 27 degrees.

Just before 11am, Santa and the reindeer were seen continuing their flight over the South Pacific, heading toward Tonga, a group of islands about 1,100 miles off the coast of New Zealand.

Half an hour later, the magic sleigh was spotted in the skies over Auckland in New Zealand.

Santa and the lads are not expected to arrive in Cork until after midnight our time, when everyone is urged to be tucked up in bed and sound asleep.

Be sure to leave out a snack for Santa, but perhaps nothing too heavy, as he has a lot of chimneys to magically get down tonight, even in houses that don't have chimneys. Rudolph is known to be partial to a carrot.

Met Éireann says it should be cloudy in Cork this Christmas Eve, with a good deal of dry weather, although scattered patches of light rain and drizzle will feed in from the west at times.

Highest temperatures of 11 to 13 degrees in moderate southwest winds during the day, while most places will be dry and cloudy tonight, though isolated patches of drizzle and mist will spread from the Atlantic at times.

The national forecaster predicts that Santa will have no problem making his way across the country with the help of a moderate southwest wind, in lowest temperatures of 9 to 11 degrees.

Christmas Day will be largely cloudy and dry with just isolated patches of drizzle, and mild, with highest temperatures of 11 to 13 degrees in moderate southwest winds.

Christmas night will stay largely cloudy but dry at first with just a little patchy rain and drizzle.

However, more persistent rain and drizzle will develop in Connacht and Ulster overnight, with lowest temperatures of 8 to 11 degrees in a light to moderate southerly breeze.

St Stephen’s Day will be another cloudy day with scattered outbreaks of rain and drizzle, along with some mist patches.

Rain will be most persistent in the west and north with a few brighter breaks possible in the east and midlands. Highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees in light to moderate southerly winds.

It will stay cloudy on Thursday night with scattered patches of light rain and drizzle, with lowest temperatures of 8 to 11 degrees in light to moderate southerly winds.

Friday will be a cloudy day with further patchy light rain and drizzle, mainly across the western half of the country.

You can track Santa’s movements through santatracker.google.com, or noradsanta.org.