[WATCH] Sliema pedestrians brave pavement flooding

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Rain, a temperature of around 8˚C and strong waves overflowing onto the promenade did not stop pedestrians from strolling and jogging in Sliema this afternoon.

The Meteorological Office is predicting that tomorrow’s temperatures will drop to a minimum of 4˚C, which would make New Year’s Eve 2014 the coldest Maltese December day since 1988 when temperatures had dropped to 3.7˚C. Tomorrow is also expected to be a rainy New Year’s Eve, with the Met Office predicting an 85% chance of rain and a 15% chance of thunderstorms. Notwithstanding this, tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve celebrations are set to go ahead.

Heavy rain, hail and thunder battered Malta overnight on Tuesday morning, flooding several streets in Msida, Birkirkara, Lija and Maghtab. Floods were also reported near Kennedy Grove and Chadwick Lakes. Gozo was hit with a particularly severe hailstorm, blanketing parts of the island with so much hail that they appeared to have been struck by a snowstorm. Indeed, some Gozitan children took advantage of the situation to construct miniature ice ‘snowmen’.

The Met Office explained that a spell of cold weather is reaching the Mediterranean from Russia and Scandinavia. The Nadur weather station posted data last night that the temperature actually slipped below zero for a brief moment, dropping to -0.6˚C. Although temperatures below 0˚C could theoretically lead to snow, Malta is surrounded by sea whose temperature is not predicted to dip below 15˚C, making a snowy Malta very unlikely.