November nights getting warmer

It took just half a degree to make people wonder where winter has been hibernating last month.

At a mean temperature of 17.9 °C, November was half a degree warmer than the average over the past 30 years, the Meteorological Office of Malta International Airport reported yesterday.

The warmest November in the 83-year history of the Met Office was that of 1926 with a mean temperature of 20.3 °C. The coolest November since 1922 was that of 1978 with an average of 15.1°C.

November's average minimum temperature of 15.1°C was more than half a degree warmer than the 83-year average.

The warmest night was the 15th/16th with a low of 21°C. The night of the 20th was the coolest, seeing the mercury creep down to 9.9°C.

The chilliest November night on record was in 1995 when at dawn of the 23rd the temperature dropped to just five degrees above freezing.

The Met Office noted that there has been a marked increase in night-time temperatures over the last 30 years. Between 1975 and 1984 the average lowest temperature was 13.2°C but over the following 10-year period this jumped to 14.7°C and during the next decade it rose further to 14.9°C (see graph).

Last month the highest temperature reached at Malta International Airport was 23.9°C on November 2. The highest November temperature ever reached since records began in 1922 was 28.2°C on November 6, 1998.

With an average of six hours and 36 minutes of bright sunshine a day, November was sunnier than usual. This meant a total of two hours more sunshine than an average November.

The brightest day was the 9th with almost 10 hours while the dullest was the 24th with barely 6 minutes of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy day.

With 18 rainy days and a total of 61.2mm, rainfall was well short of the average for the month by 21mm. The heaviest downpour, 13.6mm, occurred during the night of November 10. The wettest November since 1922 was that of 1999 when 420.3 mm drenched the Maltese Islands.