What started out as one of the wettest, coldest and stormiest years in decades ended in quite different fashion with parish priests in rural areas even urging the faithful to pray for rain.
A meagre 186.9mm of rain fell between September 1 and December 30. The figure becomes even more dramatic when considering that 102.2mm of rain was measured in October, indicating how dry the last four months of the year were.
According to the monthly report issued by the Meteorological Office, the rain that fell in September was measured at just 16.4mm, way below the norm of 58.1mm for the month. While October made up for this, there was no such reprieve in the last two months of 2015.
Provisional data shows that the 56mm of rain that fell in November was nearly half the average precipitation for the month (101.7mm). The trend got even worse in December when total rainfall slightly exceeded 40mm, slightly more than a third of the climate norm of 104.8mm.
This dry period contrasted sharply with the first quarter of 2015 that was characterised by exceptionally cold and stormy weather. According to the Met Office, between late December 2014 and last March, the archipelago experienced at least 25 thunder storms, almost twice the norm of 13. March, which was the third wettest in 20 years, saw the most thundery days since 1951.
Rain in February was double the norm at 112.8mm.
May turned out to be an unusually wet month, characterised by 21.2mm of rain (treble the monthly mean) and there was even a rare spell of stormy weather at the start of August, accompanied by strong winds, thunder and heavy rainfall. In fact, the precipitation level for that month exceeded the 30-year mean of 5.6mm. On the other hand, the peak temperature reached in the outgoing year was 38.4°C, on the last day of July.
Early indications suggest it could be another dry year
Though, as the Maltese would say, only God can tell when it rains or shines, an old tradition has it that the 12 days before Christmas serve as a good indication of the following 12-month period. Known as l-irwiegel, this form of weather forecast is still prevalent, especially among farmers of a certain age but not only.
Weather enthusiast Sean Vella-Caruana, 44, from Mellieħa, decided a few years ago to start a Facebook page keeping accurate weather observations between December 13 and Christmas Eve. Each 24-hour period would then be subdivided by the respective number of days in that month (say, December 13 into 31 parts representing the number of days in January) and then try to figure out what sort of weather would be in store.
“While this is not science, experience shows that, given the right interpretation, one could have a good indication of the weather for the entire year,” he said.
What about the weather in the New Year?
Mr Vella-Caruana is still processing the observations taken as recently as last week. “However, early indications suggest it could be another dry year,” he said.