The weather last month was warmer and drier than usual, the MIA Met Office said today.
With a mean temperature of 16.2°C April was warmer than the 30 year climate norm of 15.5°C. With a mean minimum temperature of 12.6°C, April nights were also warmer than the climate norm of 11.9°C.
In the last week of April the maximum temperature increased steadily and then decreased in the last two days. The warmest day last month was the 28th, when the thermometer at Malta Airport reached 27.2°C. The warmest April day ever recorded in Malta was in 1985 when a temperature of 30.7°C was reached on the 9th.
The lowest minimum temperature last month was 9°C, and this was recorded on the 10th. The coolest April night ever recorded in Malta was that of the 10th April 1956 with a low of 4.4 °C.
Last month was sunnier than normal with an average of 9.2 hours of bright sunshine, an hour more than the official climatological record for April. The brightest day was the 27th with 12.7 hours, whilst the dullest was the 17th with just 0.9 hours of bright sunshine.
A total of 21.8 mm of rainfall was recorded last month which was 0.7mm less than the 22.5 mm 30-year climatological norm for the month of April. The highest hourly precipitation rate was 20.7 mm/hr on the 16th.
The mean relative humidity last April was 77% which was equal to the climatological norm of 77%.
When compared to the 30-year climatological records, the wind speed in April, averaging 8.9 knots was lower than the climate norm of 10.3knots. For 69 % of the time it was in the light speed bracket whilst for 8% of the time it was variable. The Northwest by West was the most frequent wind direction and the highest gust last month, recorded on the 8th, reached 47 knots from the West by North direction. The strongest gust ever measured at Malta Airport in April was 56 knots (103.7 km/hr) and this was on April 15th 1969.
There was one day with thunderstorms, on the 4th, and four days with fog on the 22nd, 25th, 26th and 28th when the visibility at the Malta International Airport went down to below 1,000 meters.
The average sea surface temperature last month was 16.6 °C which was warmer than the average value of 15.9°C for April.
The lowest grass-height temperature last month was 5.3°C on the 22nd of the month. The lowest ever recorded grass-height temperature in April was -0.5 °C on the 3rd of the month in 1965.