High humidity levels recorded in May

Last Wednesday's thunderstorm raised the amount of rainfall for May to three times the average, but it was not a record, the Met Office said yesterday.

A total of 25.6mm of rainfall were measured in a few hours at the Met Office's site at Luqa on Wednesday, besides an even greater amount at other remote stations.

But it was also still lower than the record amount in a 24-hour period for this month when, in 1992, 29.6mm were measured, and it was less than the wettest May ever, back in 1976, when 49.1mm were recorded.

The Met Office said last month was slightly warmer than in the past 30 years, with a mean temperature of 20.4oC compared to an average of 19.4oC. The average maximum temperature of 24.8oC and the average minimum temperature of 16.0oC were also a degree above the average for May. The highest temperature reached was 28oC, quite below the extreme maximum of 33.9oC reached in 1973 and in 1994. The lowest temperature was 12oC, again being closer to the average than the extreme minimum of 8oC in 1970.

A quite significant phenomenon last month was the high humidity levels particularly during the nights. In fact, the 100 per cent maximum relative humidity was reached on no fewer than 13 nights, with 99 per cent being reached another six times, the remaining nights being at and above the 74 per cent threshold, which is the average for May.

Fog was observed on two nights.

The northwest was the predominant wind direction last month and the mean speed was 7.0kts, less than the average of 8.9kts for May. The maximum wind gust of 33kts on Wednesday, May 21, was also from the northwest.

The average number of hours of bright sunshine per day was slightly more than the mean of 9.5 hours.