Total rainfall so far this month have already made it the fifth wettest October since records started being kept in 1947, the Met Office at MIA said.
It said that a weather phenomenon known as a mesoscale convective system gave rise to yesterday’s adverse weather conditions over the Maltese islands.
Dingli weatherstation registered the highest rainfall intensity of 63mm/hour at 6 a.m. yesterday. Birkirkara, Selmun and Luqa stations also registered high rainfall intensity of 46mm/hr, 43mm/hr and 37mm/hr respectively.
During the 24-hour period between Sunday and yesterday, the total amount of rainfall measured at Luqa airport amounted to 102mm which exceeded that registered in similar but fatal events observed on 25th October 1979 when a total of 100.3mm of rain fell over Luqa airport.
So far, the total rainfall of 221.6mm registered at Luqa Airport for just this month ranks 5th since 1947. The highest amount of rainfall for the month of October was registered in 1951 with a total of 476.5 mm.
See also - The calm after the storm
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20101026/local/the-calm-after-the-storm