Winters in Malta are usually mild, with only rare occurrences of cold weather brought by north and northeast winds from central Europe. Summers are almost always warm, dry, and very sunny. Daytime temperatures in summer are usually made more comfortable by cooling sea breezes, but in spring and autumn a very hot wind from Africa sometimes brings unpleasantly high temperatures.

This is the sirocco wind, which also affects Italy and Greece, although in Malta the air is usually rather drier because of the short sea track from the African coast.

Annual rainfall in Malta is low and the dry season in summer is longer than that in southern Italy. Malta has a very sunny climate with an average of five to six hours of sunshine a day in the mid winter and over twelve hours a day in summer.