The debate on whether the white flakes that fell from the sky last week were snow or hail is over: they were snow pellets, according to the Met Office.

New Year’s Eve saw the mercury drop to 2.8 °C, the lowest December night temperature ever recorded in Malta.

This coincided with a rare form of precipitation as snow pellets, also known as graupel, were reported in parts of the island on December 30 and 31.

Still, New Year’s Eve was not the coldest night on record because, according to the Met Office, that happened on January 29, 1981, when the temperature dropped to 1.4°C.

The lowest December night temperature coincided with a rare form of precipitation –snow pellets, also known as graupel

Although the average temperature last month was 14.9°C, or 0.6°C above the norm, the last day of 2014 was the second coldest December day on record, with 7.7°C, just one degree above that recorded in 1923.

But the December cold also brought some excitement, with various parts of Malta and Gozo blanketed overnight by what some wishfully thought was snow. Such was the excitement that social media users even coined the word borrinu for “snowman”, because for the first time the Maltese could build their own version of one.

December also saw hail on the 17th, 30th and 31st. It usually only hails on one day in the last month of the year.

A total of 150mm of rain was measured, considerably higher than the norm of 104mm.

Thunderstorms struck on six days, against the usual five. However, last month also saw an average of 5.5 hours of bright sunshine daily, above the norm of five hours.