The hot temperature cooking Malta these last few days is expected to reach a new height today when, according to the Meteorological Office, it will feel like 44 degrees.
The actual temperature is 38 degrees, but it will feel like six degrees more given the equation that takes into account humidity, cloud cover, winds, sun intensity and the angle of the sun.
The sea temperature is set to be 27 degrees, probably not cool enough to take away the sweltering heat. Other reports show that in some areas the temperature of the sea reached 30 degrees too.
The situation will not get better for a few days, with feel like temperatures reaching 43 for the next few days. It will take until Saturday for the temperature to drop to a less scorching 35 degrees.
In a statement, the University said that the temperature of the sea had reached 30 degrees.
The intense solar radiation associated with the high air temperatures in recent days has naturally also affected the sea temperature. Sea surface temperature (SST) has been on the high all around the Maltese Islands, reaching values well beyond 29oC and peaking up to 30.1oC in the coastal stretch of sea opposite Marsascala on Saturday 5 August, in the early evening hours.
SST is regularly monitored by orbiting satellites which keep an eye on its variability in time and in space. The Physical Oceanography Research Group at the Dept. of Geosciences of the University of Malta elaborates such data which provide snapshots of SST centred around midnight each day. Numerical models further produce maps of SST around the Maltese Islands as it changes during the day.
These maps show how the sea temperatures change from place to place as well as in time, rising to highest values in late afternoon when the sea has accumulated the sun's radiation during the day, and cooling down by around 2oC during the night when the sea surface re-radiates part of its acquired heat energy back to the atmosphere.
The satellite SST for the night between Thursday 4th and Friday 5th August reached peaks of 28.6oC. The sea continued to absorb heat energy during the day as solar radiation fluxes,measured by the heat station at the University of Malta, poured on land and at sea at persisting rates of up to 875 Watts per square meter. The picture shows the modelled SST mapof the sea on Saturday in the early evening hours when sea water temperatures reached their highest. Sea temperatures in shallower areas, ports, embayments and beaches were even higher. The sea temperature measured at 3m depth in a yacht marina on the eastern coast reached close to 31oC. The warm waters near Malta are in contrast to the relatively cooler patch of sea west of the islands, the university said.