3,095 hours of sunshine in Malta last year

Sunshine was not in short supply in Malta last year, with the Meteorological Office recording a total of 3,095.2 hours of sunshine.

12.33 sunshine hours were recorded during the brightest month, July, and the year average stood at 8.48 sunshine hours.

Malta’s brightest year on record was 1961, when the hours of sunshine averaged 8.9 hours daily. 

December was unusually bright and balmy, and the islands experienced 197.9 sunshine hours in the final months instead of the 156.3 hours that the Met office had predicted. This peaked on December 23 when last-minute Christmas shoppers enjoyed 9.5 hours of sunshine.

The average air temperature also remained quite warm at 14.4°C, with highs of up to 19.8°C and lows reaching 7.8°C. By comparison, the previous year saw much chillier conditions during the festive season when temperatures hit a record low for December, dropping to just 2.8°C on New Year’s Eve. Rainfall also fell far short of the climate norm last month with a total of 45.8mm recorded instead of the usual average of 104.8mm

Met office figures show that 2015 was overall characterised by moderate weather patterns without notable extremes. The year began with the lowest recorded temperature for 2015, dropping to 2.1°C on January 1 and then reaching a peak of 38.4°C on the hottest day of summer, which was July 31. The wettest month was February with a total of 112.8mm of rainfall and the driest was June, in which only a trace of rainfall was detected.

Coming in at just 12.8mm lower than the climate norm, rainfall totalled 554.2mm for the year.  Thunder was reported on 37 days out of the year, hail on 5 days, and fog was seen on 2 days. The strongest wind gust recorded was 50 knots on the 26th of November, while the mean wind speed for the year was 8.25 knots.