August sees slightly warmer temperatures than normal, Met Office says

August was slightly warmer than usual this year, however, the island did not see any records broken, according to the Meteorological Office.

The Met Office at Malta International Airport said the average air temperature in August reached 28.2°C, which was one degree warmer than the usual temperature during the month. The mean sea surface temperature also was one degree warmer than usual reaching 27.3°C.

The office said the first few days of the month were characterised by pleasant temperatures, which dropped to a minimum of 21.8°C on 6 August.

The maximum temperature for August was registered just before Santa Maria, when mercury hit 36°C on 13 August. By this week the sun was out in full force, with sunshine accounting for 13.2 hours on the 18 and 19 of August, making those dates the brightest in the month.

The Met Office explained that one of the contributing factors to the warmer-than-average temperatures was August's lack of rainfall, with only trace amounts of precipitation measured on 29 August. Which also saw only 1.2 hours of bright sunshine, making it the dullest day of the month.

The month’s mean wind speed only reached 6 knots; half a knot calmer than the norm. Averaging at 0.9 oktas, the cloud cover for August was relatively lighter than expected, which contributed to the 19.2 hour-increase in the sunshine over the same month last year, when only 312.1 hours of sunshine was reordered. However, in 2019, 331,4 hours of sunshine was recorded in August. Albeit this still, fell slightly short of the monthly average of 335.3 hours.