Wetter, windier October

In case you were wondering, last month was the third wettest October since 1951, according to the Meteorological Office.

The heavy rain on October 24 and 25, which flooded many areas across the island, pushed the rain level up to 230mm, making last month the third wettest October in 59 years. The average rainfall for October is 89.7mm.

Last week’s rain was not an isolated incident as there were 10 days with thunderstorms, four days above the average. The record here goes to October 1962 with 12 thunderstorm days.

This October was also cooler than average, at 20.6°C. The mean maximum temperature last month was 23.2°C, a whole degree below the average. This follows a downward trend experienced in October last year.

The month also got drastically colder: while October 4 was the warmest day, with a maximum temperature of 26.3°C, the mercury went down to 12.4°C last Saturday night. This still falls shy of the 8°C recorded on the same night in 1978.

Despite the overall downward trend in temperature, the average sea surface temperature was 23.4°C, 0.5 °C higher than the average for October since 1978.

Apart from being very wet, October was windier than usual, with an average of 7.6 knots. For 76 per cent of the time, the wind was in the light speed bracket, with the west northwest being the most frequent direction. October 18 saw the biggest gust of wind of 37 knots from the northwest by west.

The monthly average humidity reached 79 per cent, which is one per cent above the 30-year mean.

There was no fog last month, when an average of six hours and 12 minutes of sunshine a day, lower than the climate norm, were registered.