Cooler days and warmer nights in August

August days were slightly cooler than average but the nights were warmer, according to the Meteorological Office of Malta International Airport.

The mean temperature in August was 26.7°C and the highest temperature measured last month was 34.7°C, on August 12, a good nine degrees below the highest temperature ever recorded, that of August 9, 1999, when the thermometer at MIA climbed to 43.8°C.

For most of the month the atmosphere over the central Mediterranean and over Malta in particular remained quite unstable, thus sea breezes could easily form bringing in cooler air from over the surrounding sea.

The nights were slightly, half a degree, warmer than average at 22.6°C. The warmest night was that of August 21 when the lowest temperature dropped to only 25.6°C and the coolest night was that of August 29 when it reached 19.2°C. The lowest temperature ever recorded at the MIA Meteorological Office, which is Malta's only official weather site, was 15.9°C on August 27, 1972.

The sea temperature was 26.6°C - almost a degree warmer than the average for the month.

The average wind speed last month was 5.7 knots (10.5 kilometres per hour or 6.6 mph) - for 90 per cent of the time the wind blew at under 10 knots, a good 20 per cent calmer than normal.

The strongest gust observed reached 29 knots (53.7 kilometres per hour or 33.4 mph) from the Northwest and the highest wind speed recorded since 1947 in August was 59 knots (109 kilometres per hour or 68 mph) from the Northeast in 1964.

The most frequent direction of the wind last month was the Northwest.

The average rainfall in August is 5.3 millimetres, however at the airport, only a trace was recorded on August 5 and on the last couple of days of the month.

Malta had, on average, 10 hours and 34 minutes of sunshine a day, which means that last month there was a total of about eight hours of sunshine less than normally expected. The sunniest days were August 2 and 3 with 12 hours and 24 minutes each and the dullest was last Tuesday with only three hours and 24 minutes of sunshine.