Rainfall was lower than average last month when a total precipitation of 63.6 mm was registered at Malta Airport, against the October climate norm of 89.7 mm, the Meteorological Office said.

It said in a statement that the driest October since 1923 was that same year with 1mm of rainfall while the wettest was in 1951 with a total rainfall of 476.5 mm.

The wettest day this October was the 15 with 34.6mm. Of the seven automatic weather stations situated around the Maltese islands and the Malta Airport MetOffice, only the one in Xagħra (Gozo) reported a higher rainfall than the October climate norm.

The Met Office said that last month there was an average of 6.9 hours of sunshine and an average humidity of 72 per cent.

There were six days when thunderstorm was heard from Malta Airport, equal to the October mean. The stormiest October was that of 1962 with 12 thunderstorm days.

The Met Office said that a mean temperature of 20.1 degrees C was recorded. This is cooler than the norm of 20.7. The highest temperature reached in October was 27.1 degrees C on the 1st while the lowest temperature was 12.4 degrees C on the 18th.

The sea temperature, with a mean of 23.4 degrees C was 0.5 degrees C more than the norm of 22.9.

The average wind speed at Malta Airport last month was 7.5 knots, while the most frequent direction was from the east direction. The strongest gust was 42 knots from the northwest and was recorded on the 9th.

www.maltairport.com/weather.