April brought warmer spring days to the Maltese Islands, as the average air temperature increased by 3.4°C over March.

However, at 15.8°C, last month’s average air temperature was still 0.6°C below the climate norm for April, while the mean sea surface temperature was 0.3°C lower than the expected 16.3°C.

The month’s maximum air temperature peaked at 24.6°C on April 25, while the lowest temperature was recorded on April 19 at 8.4°C.

Sunshine

Despite having accounted for April’s lowest temperature, the 19th day was also the month’s sunniest, during which 12.4 hours of sunshine were recorded. But no sunshine hours were clocked on April 15, 16 and 28, as a combination of dust in suspension and high levels of humidity gave rise to hazy weather.

While April’s mean cloud cover was perfectly in line with the norm of 3.6 oktas, the sunshine hours measured during the month failed to measure up to the monthly quota of 252.9 hours.

This can be partly explained by the presence of dust in suspension on several occasions, resulting from the advection of large amounts of dust and sand towards the central Mediterranean due to depressions over Northern Africa, which generally occur in spring. 

Throughout the month, dust in suspension was observed on six days; however, the effect of this dust was particularly pronounced on April 6 and 21, when the visibility was affected significantly. April 6 was also one of the month’s two foggy days.

Rain

While the saying goes that April showers bring forth May flowers, last month yielded just 2.0 mm of precipitation, rather than the expected 18.7 mm.

April, in fact, continued the drier-than-average trend that has been observed since the beginning of the year. The month’s wettest days were April 15 and 18, each of which produced 0.8 mm of precipitation. 

April 15 also produced the month’s maximum gust of 42 knots from the northeast by east direction, as very strong winds swept across the Maltese Islands.

The month was windier than expected, with the average wind speed exceeding the climate norm of 9.5 knots by 1.6 knots.