Summer 2002 did not surely provide us with the weather we were accustomed to in the last summers. June29th.com tried to get an explanation from Nadur’s weather expert Joe Meilak.

Yes, it’s true. This summer was a bit strange. We did not have the heat we used to have in the summers of the 1990s. In fact this one was quite a cool summer. The only real heat wave which hit Malta this summer lasted just two days during the first week of August. Temperatures jumped to over 35ºC during those two days.

We had no other heat wave. This was mainly due to a northwesterly wind which lasted almost from June to September, with just a few days of southerly wind. Northwesterly winds bring over Malta cool weather, while southerly winds bring heat.

Summer started rather late this year. May and June were relatively cooler than normal, while July's temperature was below average at Nadur. In addition, the sea temperature which normally climbs to 27ºC or even 28ºC, today stands at only 25ºC - a full two degrees below normal. This is helping temperatures during this Maltese summer to stay relatively bearable compared to other years, when we had to endure many consecutive days of temperatures over 35ºC and even over 40ºC on occasion.

Winds during the summer months are usually light and variable over the Maltese Islands during the summer months. This year we have had quite a few days with strong northwesterly winds, but this is nothing exceptional.

This summer has been almost totally dry, as in most summers and slightly below normal as far as temperatures are concerned. All this falls within the normal parameters for the Maltese summer. Meteorologists, whose speciality is long-term forecasts, are predicting that the Azores anticyclone will disintegrate earlier than usual this summer (mid-September instead of early October) thus clearing the way for the Atlantic low pressure systems to make headway in the Mediterranean and bring us the much needed rainfall. In my opinion, they might be right, since Nature has a tendency to balance its excesses. After two extremely dry years, the odds are that we will have an above average rainfall for the coming winter. But then again, maybe not…!

While we should not face severe floods in the coming winter, we should be ready for them! Weather in Malta has the tendency to come up with a major storm every ten years. 

In November 1993 Gozo experienced a terrible storm. The Nadur Weather Observatory registered 155 mm of rain in two hours! I believe that either the coming winter or the one afterwards, we are due for a very severe storm which could do a lot of damage.

Stay up-to-date with the weather conditions in Gozo. Visit Joe Meilak's website www.gozoweather.com.