May was an average month
with a mean temperature of 20.4°C but no weather records were
broken. The warmest Mays were 1988 and 1999, both with mean
temperatures of 21.6°C, whilst the coolest was that of 1991 with
17.8°C. The mean maximum temperature of 23.4°C was 1.0°C below
average, while the mean minimum temperature of 17.3 was 0.8°C above
average! This is a normal trend of global warming with nights being
substantially warmer than normal.
The warmest day last month
was on the last day of the month, when the thermometer at Balzan
reached 28.1°C. The warmest May day ever recorded was in 2006 when
37.3°C was reached on the 23rd. The coolest May day on record was
the 14th of May 1991, when a maximum temperature of just 16.1°C was
recorded.
The lowest minimum
temperature last month was 14.9°C, recorded late in the night on the
5th. The coolest May night since temperature records began at Balzan
in 1987 was that of the 2nd of May 1992 with a low of 10.5 °C.
The wind speed at Zebbug
Malta in May, averaged 14.2km/h with ESE being the most common wind
direction. The highest gust was of 79.6km/h
from a southerly direction on the 28th. On the same day a much
higher gust of 98.1km/h was recorded at Mellieha.
The lowest grass-height
temperature last month was 10.2°C on the 6th of the month. The
lowest ever recorded grass-height temperature in May was 5.7°C on
the 8th of the month in 1991.
Rainfall was on the low
side with only 2.5mm of rain recorded at Balzan compared to the
average of 9.8mm.