January was cooler and drier than normal

Last months was cooler and drier than normal, the Met Office at MIA confirmed this morning.

It said it registered two consecutive days with gale force winds, being the 6^th and 7^th of the month. On the 7^th the strongest wind gust of 48 knots from the West Northwest with the daily mean wind speed of 23.5kts were registered at Malta Airport. 

Since 1947 the strongest recorded wind gust at Malta Airport was on 15^th January 1951, 16^th January 1978 and 2^nd January 1994 when a maximum gust of 61 knots was recorded.

The overall monthly average wind speed measured at Malta Airport was 9 knots which was lower than the monthly climate average of 10.2 knots. The most frequent wind direction last month was from the West Northwest direction.

RAIN

A total of 67mm of rain fell last month at Luqa, which was lower than the climate January norm of 89mm. The wettest day for January was the 30^th of the month with a total of 9.8 mm. The highest total January rainfall on record occurred in 2009 with a total of 248.2 mm, while the driest one was that in 1983 with just 8.5 mm.

With a mean temperature of 11.6°C, January 2012 was cooler then the climate norm of 12.4 °C. The mean maximum temperature for January 2012 was 14.2°C which is less than the norm of 15.2°C, while the mean minimum temperature was 9°C and this is also less than the climate norm of 9.5°C. The highest temperature recorded last month was 16.9°C on the 2^nd and the lowest temperature was 4.7°C on the 27^th.

The mean sea temperature last month was 16°C which was 0.8°C warmer than average. The lowest recorded grass minimum temperature for this month was -0.7°C on the night of the 26/27^th January. A mean relative humidity of 74% was recorded last January, which is less than the climate norm of 79%.

Thunder was heard on January 4^th and 6^th while hail was observed on the 6^th of the month. There was an average of 5 hours and 42 minutes of bright sunshine a day which is 36 minutes more than the average of 5 hours 06 minutes.

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