August was warmer than usual, with the temperature reaching 38.7°C on the 15th, the meteorological office said on Friday. 

According to its latest data, the month’s climatic mean maximum temperature of 31.7°C was exceeded on 19 days.

Throughout August the temperature ranged between 22.6°C and 38.7°C, and the sea too was warmer than usual.

The month was brightened by 352 hours of sunshine, surpassing the sunshine quota for August by 17 hours. August 5 was the month's sunniest, with 12.8 hours of sunshine.

On the same day, a maximum gust of 29 knots blowing from a west and north-westerly direction was also recorded. 

The average wind speed maintained throughout the month was of 7.4 knots, slightly stronger than the norm of 6.5 knots.

The driest month of the year

August produced no rain, becoming the driest of the 12 months between 2019 and 2020, the 'precipitation year'.

During that period, precipitation amounted to 384.4mm, or 68 per cent of the rainfall that is typically expected.

Twenty-eight per cent of this total was collected in November 2019, making it the wettest month of the period. 

November was followed by three significantly dry months – December (51.2mm), January (15mm), and February (0.6mm). They produced just 66.8mm of rainfall in all.

February, in fact, went down on record as the driest February since 1923.

March, April and May, which constitute the meteorological spring, partly made up for the dry winter months. Producing a total of 85.4mm of rainfall, these months were 27 per cent wetter than the mean.

The start of the new precipitation year has been particularly wet, with an average of 95.9mm of rainfall measured in the first 17 days of September.