Met Office gathers 42.4mm of rainfall during storm

Over the past 24 hours the Maltese islands were hit by thunderstorms with heavy rainfall, during which 42.4mm of rainfall were measured at Malta Airport Met Office in Luqa, while the peek wind gust reached 48 knots.

"Although this type of weather is not common, thunderstorms with heavy rainfall are typical of weather  for end of summer-autumn in the Mediterranean," the Met Office said.

Recent high rainfall was that registered in September 1995 with 112.7mm, in 1997 with 106.7mm and in 2003 with 100.8mm.

Last night's thunderstorm was the result of cold air penetrating into the western Mediterranean over the last couple of days which led to the forming of a very slow moving cold pool. The cold pool system started to extend southwards on Saturday creating warm and moist southwesterly air streams close to the central Mediterranean.

During Sunday and Monday morning a depression developed over Libya and continued to extend northwards merging with a wide low pressure system over northern Italy.

This long area of low pressure across the central Mediterranean triggered the development of thunder clouds which, finding a very warm Mediterranean Sea with a lot of available moisture, grew rapidly into large thunderstorms with copius rainfall and strong wind gusts.

The weather is expected to improve by the afternoon, when only isolated showers are expected with a moderate Northwest wind. The weather is expected to continue to improve during tomorrow and the coming days when hardly any precipitation is expected.