MaltaMedia.com

November 2009 was cool but very dry with rain falling on only 6 days of the month for a total of just 27.1mm of rainfall recorded at Balzan compared to the average of 112.5mm.

There were also 10 days with dew amounting to 1.7mm. The heaviest rainfall of the month was recorded on the 10th with 7.6mm. The reason for such a dry November was due to a very dominant high pressure system over most of the Mediterranean for most the last 2 weeks of the month.

The wettest November since records began at Balzan in 1985 was 1999 with 383.4mm of rainfall and the driest 1992 with just 6.9 mm. November 2009 was the fourth driest November ever.

The average temperature last month was 17.4°C — the coolest November since 2002 and cooler by 0.6°C than the average temperature of 18.0°C. The warmest day was on the 5th with a temperature of 26.3°C and the coolest night was on the 26th when the temperature dropped to 11.1 degrees Celsius.

The warmest November day since temperature records began at Balzan in 1987 was on 1st November 1990 with a high of 28.9 °C, whilst the coolest November night on record was on 23rd November 1995 with a low of 5.7°C.

The average wind speed in November was of 12km/h at Zebbug Malta with the highest gust reaching 68.5km/h from the west on the 3rd of the month. On the 10th, during a thunderstorm, our Mellieha Weather Station recorded a maximum gust of 87.0km/h at around 00:11 CET. The most frequent wind direction during September was the west.

The only notable weather event in November was an isolated thunderstorm at around noon on the 9th affecting mainly Victoria in Gozo that produced some large hail around 2cm in diameter (confirmed) or possibly even a bit bigger (not confirmed). The hail storm lasted around 10 minutes. There was quit a lot of wind shear on that day.

More weather information and weather forecasts can be found at www.maltaweather.com