A particularly cool February closed off the meteorological winter season, which saw temperatures peak early at 19.4°C in the beginning of December, and drop gradually to reach a seasonal low of 3.7°C towards the end of February.
However, according to the Meteorological Office at Malta International Airport, the air may have felt crisper than usual, but the season’s mean air temperature was only fractionally lower than the norm of 13°C, averaging 12.7°C.
In its round-up of the winter weather highlights, the Met Office said that while the past season may have also seemed wetter than the norm, the three-month period in fact registered slightly below-average rainfall, receiving 223 millimetres of rain, as opposed to the seasonal average of 247.8mm.
An exceptionally dry December turned out to be the calm before the storm, with more than triple the amount of rain in December pouring down in the first month of 2019 to amount to 99.8mm of rainfall.
Punctuated by episodes of strong wind and stormy weather, the winter months saw wind gusts reach 54 knots on February 24, but otherwise maintained a slightly-above-average mean wind speed of 10 knots.
Despite the odd wet or stormy spell, the winter months were far from sun-deprived, with an average of 6.4 hours of sunshine gracing Malta’s skies every day. Racking up a total of 578.1 hours of sunshine, the past winter season surpassed the seasonal sunshine norm by 75 hours.
The Meteorological Office also reported seven hailstorms, this being slightly higher than the norm of five occurrences of hail.
March Highlights
The start of spring has brought with it drier and warmer weather to the Maltese islands. The month of March received 34.6mm of rainfall, 10.8mm of which fell on March 21st, while registering a mean air temperature 0.6°C higher than the climate norm, this year reaching 14.5°C.
A light cloud cover, averaging 3.4 oktas, settled over the islands during March, allowing both locals and tourists to soak up an average of 7.5 hours of sunshine per day, amounting to an above-average total of 232.7 hours of sunshine being recorded by the end of the month.
While no sunshine was recorded on the 21st, 22nd or 27th of the month, the 11.1 hours of bright sunshine recorded on March 26 seemingly made up for a rather dull week, making this particular day the brightest of the month.
The month both started and ended on a chilly note, seeing the air temperature drop to 9°C on March 6 and 28. March 9, on the other hand, became the month’s warmest day when the mercury hit 21.8°C.
At 15.8°C, the mean sea temperature during March was also warmer than the climate norm for this time of year.
With an average wind-speed of 9.9 knots, March was also slightly windier than expected, with the highest wind gust for the month, blowing from a north-west by north and north-north-west direction, reaching 49 knots on March 12.