The hot temperatures recorded at the Meteorological Office over the past few days are expected to slide down by about three to four degrees Celsius towards the second part of this week, according to Saviour Porter, manager meteorological services at Malta International Airport.

As maximum temperatures reached about 38°C yesterday, today’s high is expected to be more or less the same, but maximum temperatures between tomorrow and Sunday are expected to be in the range of 33°C to 34°C. Mr Porter explained that what is commonly referred to as a “heat wave” is considered to be 10ºC above the monthly mean temperature, which happens to be 31.4°C for the month of July.

Over the past 30 years, the highest temperature ever registered for the month of July was in 1988, when a maximum average temperature of 42.7°C was recorded on 9 July.

This was, however, a single day heat wave, since the worst long heat wave in July was in 1987, when maximum temperatures between 38°C and 41°C were recorded over seven consecutive days.

Higher temperatures – between 36.4°C and 43 °C – were also recorded on three consecutive days at the beginning of the month in July 1998 and on another four consecutive days at the end of the same month.

July and August are undoubtedly known to be two of the hottest months of the year; in fact the highest temperature ever recorded since 1922 – when the Meteorological Office started keeping records for climatological purposes – was that of 43.8 °C on 9 August 1999.