Rainfall last month was twice the norm for the month, although it was far from being a record data issued today by the Malta Airport Met Office shows.
The amount of rain over the Maltese islands reached 83.2 mm when the norm is 40.4 mm. The wettest day was September 2nd with a total of 48.6 mm. The wettest September on record was in 1997 with a total of 266.9 mm. The driest was that of 1943 with no rain at all.
The area with the highest rainfall last month was that around Birkirkara with a total of 143.6mm followed by Selmun with 108.6mm.
During the same month there were three days of thunderstorms, on the 2nd, 3rd and 5th, which is within the norm for September. The stormiest September was that of 1955 with 11 days followed by that of 2003 with 10 thunderstorm days. No hail or fog was reported.
With a mean air temperature of 25.1°C, September was warmer than the climatological norm by 1°C. The lowest minimum temperature last month was 16.6oC, recorded on the 15th. Records at the MetOffice show that the coolest September night occurred on the 22nd in 1969, with a minimum of 13.2°C.
The highest maximum temperature of 31.8 °C was recorded on September 25th. For the first 13 days of September the maximum temperature was always above the norm. On the 14th the maximum temperature took a steep fall and then rose again to about normal until the 23rd when it started to increase and reached the maximum temperature on the 25th. The hottest September days on record were those of the 9th and 10th of 1924, when a maximum temperature of 38.9°C was reached.
With a mean sea temperature of 26.4oC, the sea temperature in September was much warmer than the norm of 24.8oC.
The monthly mean humidity reached 76%, which is 1 percentage point less than the climatological norm.
The wind at Malta Airport last month had a mean speed of 7.2 knots which is normal for the month of September. 84 % of the time the wind speed was within the light wind speed bracket (1 to 10 knots). The most frequent direction was the Northwest with 40 hours. The strongest gust was on the 3rd of the month with a gust of 39 knots from the West by North direction.
Last month there was a mean of 9.8 hours of sunshine a day which is 1.1hours more than the Climatological norm. The sunniest days were the 1st of September with 11.6 hours, while the dullest was the 3rd with just 3.6 hours of bright sunshine. The total hours of bright sunshine in September were 295 hours.
