Extra long spells of sunshine make for a warm October

After a warmer than average October, the weather is expected to start cooling in the coming days.

According to Brian Micallef, a forecaster at the Meteorological Office of the Malta International Airport, the temperature is expected to start going down, and should reach 19 degrees Celsius tomorrow. The average temperature for November is 21 degrees.

Humidity should also start declining, he said.

Tonight, the Met Office is forecasting thunderstorms, and rainy weather is expected to continue on Thursday and Friday, with the temperature on Thursday expected to go down to 18 degrees at its highest and a low of 16 degrees.

Despite the fact that the temperature in October was 1.3 degrees warmer than the average in the past 57 years at 22.2 degrees Celsius, this was not the warmest October on record since 1947, when records started being kept, with 1987 and 2001 reaching a mean temperature of 22.3 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, the coolest October was that of 1954, with an average temperature of 18.9 degrees Celsius.

Chief meteorological officer Saviour Porter said in a statement that the mean temperature in October has been rising steadily over the years, particularly in the 1990s. The highest temperature last month was that of 30.1 degrees Celsius, reached on October 21, while the lowest temperature of 15.6 degrees Celsius was reached a week later.

Mr Porter said October "certainly felt" humid, but added that this was nothing remarkable since the average relative humidity of 78 per cent was the way it had been for the past 30 years. He said fog was observed in several localities throughout the month, and on three nights this enshrouded the airport.

A total of 19.8 millimetres of rain was measured at the Met Office last month. Mr Porter said this made October "a very dry month indeed". However, he added, this was very similar to the rainfall pattern over the past years, with October 1999 being the driest with just 10 millimetres of rain. The wettest October since 1947 was 1951, with 476 millimetres measured.

Last month there was an average of eight hours a day of sunshine. Mr Porter said this was one hour more than the mean, which led to an extra 31 hours of sunshine during the month. The Met Office said the brightest day was the first of the month with just over 11 hours of sunshine, while October 28 was the dullest with just one hour and 21 minutes of sunshine.

October was characterised by a persistent anticyclone or a period of high pressure covering most of the southern and eastern part of Europe as well as the western and central Mediterranean. Mr Porter explained that high pressure systems cause the air to descend from the upper parts of the atmosphere down to sea level, which leads to the air getting warmed up and dried out. This resulted in the warm temperatures and dry weather that was experienced last month.

He said the thunder heard last Wednesday morning was caused after a dynamic low pressure system which passed swiftly through the central Mediterranean caused the air mass to rise rapidly. Mr Porter explained that the anticyclone was also the cause behind the light winds experienced during most of the month. He said that for most of the time - 98 per cent - the wind was light at less than 10 knots per hour. This was briefly broken during last Wednesday's morning thunderstorm when the wind was blowing to a maximum of 27 knots per hour.