It is likely to be a wet Christmas this year, with showers forecast for both the eve and December 25.

Temperatures are also expected to be below average, with the highest temperature on both Friday and Saturday expected to be 14°C.

According to Kenneth Chase, a forecaster at the Malta International Airport's Met Office, the average temperature for this period is about 16°C.

The lowest temperature on Christmas eve is expected to go down to 7°C and on Saturday it is expected to be 8°C.

However, a deviation from the forecast cannot to be ruled out since the forecaster explained that it was still slightly early to say what the weather will be like towards the end of the week. The Met. Office website is updated regularly to reflect changes in weather forecasts.

Although the wind is not expected to be as strong as it was last week, it is still expected to be between force four and five on both Christmas eve and Christmas Day. The wind is probably going to be from the north east, a change from this weekend's north westerly wind.

The lowest temperature on Christmas Eve was 6.6°C in 1982. The warmest Christmas Eve in the past 25 years was in 1996 when the highest temperature went up to 20.2°C.

The warmest Christmas Day was in 1995 and 2000 when the temperature went up to 19.6°C while the coldest December 25 was in 1986 with a temperature of 12.6°C.

Since 1980 it has rained substantially on 25 per cent of Christmas eves and 40 per cent of Christmas Days. The highest rainfall on Christmas eve was registered in 1986 when 65 millimetres of rain were measured while the highest rainfall measured on Christmas Day was in 1984 when 16.4 millimetres were recorded.