About Malta
Malta is an island in the Mediterranean Sea, to the south of Italy, where the two main languages spoken are English and Maltese. Malta has become an increasingly popular holiday resort in recent years, boasting a wide range of attractions and reliably lovely weather and hot dry sunny summers.
Malta has a subtropical Mediterranean climate, with warm and moist winters, and hot dry sunny summers. Due to the moderation from the surrounding seas, large fluctuations in temperature are rare. Malta has a narrower range of daylight hours than over northern parts of Europe, with a mean of 10 hours of daylight during December and January, rising to just over 14 in June and July.
It is a relatively windy location due to its position in the middle of the sea, and the sinoco wind occasionally delivers hot, dry and dusty conditions up from northern Africa, particularly during spring and autumn in association with depressions moving along the Mediterranean Sea.
Temperatures are mild during the winter months, while the summer months are generally hot. At Luqa Airport, the average maximum temperature ranges from 15°C in January to 31°C in July and August, while the average minimum ranges from 9°C in January to 21°C in July and August.
Frosts are very rare, even in inland parts of the island, and the only widespread air frost (minimum temperature below 0°C) since instrumental records began was early on the 1st February 1962. The summer months occasionally become excessively hot, when the winds pull hot air up from mainland Africa, and the highest maximum temperature recorded is 43.8°C at Luqa Airport during August 1999.
Precipitation shows considerable seasonal variation in Malta. The period October to January is generally wettest, with December tending to be the wettest month of all, though there is considerable variation from one month to the next- if low pressure systems track further north than usual then there are often prolonged fine spells, whereas if lows track south, then it can be very wet at times.
In contrast the period May to September is usually very dry with a mean of less than 5mm of rain per month. The mean annual rainfall total is around 550mm, which is on a par with the driest parts of Greater London, Cambridgeshire and Essex, but when it rains the rain tends to be heavier and over with more quickly than in north-western Europe.
Sunshine is far more reliable in Malta than in northern parts of Europe, even in the wet winter months. The mean annual sunshine total at Lupa Airport is just short of 3,000 hours, compared with a mean near 1,500 hours over most parts of England. Sunshine totals average 155-160 hours during December and January (a mean of five hours per day) and rise to over 350 hours (between 11 and 12 hours per day) during July.
Malta has a moderately humid climate thanks to the surrounding seas, with average relative humidity of 79% during the winter months, falling to 69% in mid-summer, though the humidity is low compared with most tropical resorts. The rain of the winter months is sometimes thundery, with a mean of 5 or 6 days per month with thunder during winter, but thunder is very rare during the dry summer months.
The mean sea temperature varies between 16°C in late winter and early spring, with a minimum in February and March, and 26°C during August, which makes diving and snorkelling attractive during summer and early to mid autumn.
