Is this Malta?

Unusual but true, this is Valletta this morning. Hail was also reported in other parts of the island.

Meteo Malta said that a squall line with isolated thunderstorms crossed the Maltese Islands early this morning affecting mainly the Grand Harbour area, especially Valletta.

It said that although this particular line of thunderstoms that crossed the Maltese Islands from a westerly direction did not qualify as severe, it still caused quite a rare phenomenon here in Malta with very deep hail drifts in Valletta resembling snow drifts in some streets! The largest hail stones were only around 1.2cm to 1.5cm in size but the huge quantity of them was really impressive. Rainfall in Valletta from this storm amounted to 36.2mm.

Meteo Malta said there was quite a lot of instability associated with this squall line with a very moist air from 12,000 to 16,000 feet. This led to the production of lots of hail as temperatures at this level were around -10 to -20 degrees Celsius.

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