Monday 4th June 2007, broke all records of rainfall during the month of June. Although several roads in Birkirkara, St Julian’s, Mosta, Sliema and Naxxar were flooded, no reports of serious injuries were reported, despite a busy 24 hours for the police and the Civil Protection Department.
Malta Weather Services said that Monday morning broke all records for rainfall for June, with 43.6mm of rainfall measured at Bahar ic-Caghaq and 40.2mm at Naxxar in just a few hours of heavy rain.
According to the Civil Protection Department (CPD) Director Peter Cordina the hardest hit areas were Birkirkara, St Julian’s, Mosta, Sliema and Naxxar, where people had to be rescued from their vehicles that had stalled in the floodwater. Mr Cordina could not give an exact number of rescues, but said: “We carried out a lot of rescues – some cars were dragged off the road as a result of the floods.”, The Malta Independent reported.
Cordina added that initial reports that a street had collapsed in Birkirkara were unfounded and that it was, in fact, a wall. There were no reports of people being dragged away by the water. The Malta Independent reported that some 25 members of DPD, plus volunteers, had worked through the day yesterday, in collaboration with the police.
According to Malta Weather Services, Monday’s heavy rainfall and thunderstorms were caused due to an upper-level low pressure system over the central Mediterranean bringing relatively cool air over a warm sea, creating a great deal of instability with lots of clouds and heavy rain showers and thunderstorms. “This is the same system which also affected Rome on Sunday morning,” Mark Vella Gera said.
Mr Vella Gera also explained that such storms can be anticipated in the future because of a warmer atmosphere and warmer seas, contributing towards heavier-than-average rainfall in one-off storms.
See MaltaWeather.com for the latest live weather reports from various locations around the Maltese islands, as well as a 5-day weather forecast.
