Discover the best time of year, based on historical climate, temperature, and precipitation.
The best weather in Malta is from May, June, September, but considering flight prices and crowds, the best months to visit are April, June, November. — consistent weather climate
☀️Pleasant
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| Score | 42 | 47 | 56 | 81 | 94 | 98 | 81 | 71 | 92 | 86 | 77 | 55 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate | Mild | Mild | Mild | Mild | Pleasant | Pleasant | Hot & dry | Hot & dry | Pleasant | Pleasant | Pleasant | Mild |
| Temperature | 12–15°C | 11–16°C | 12–16°C | 14–19°C | 17–22°C | 21–27°C | 23–30°C | 25–30°C | 23–28°C | 20–24°C | 17–21°C | 14–17°C |
| Feels like | 8–12°C | 8–13°C | 9–14°C | 12–17°C | 16–22°C | 22–29°C | 26–33°C | 28–34°C | 24–30°C | 20–25°C | 15–19°C | 10–14°C |
| Precipitation | 40mm 9 days | 48mm 7 days | 37mm 7 days | 16mm 4 days | 17mm 3 days | 3mm 1 days | 1mm 0 days | 5mm 2 days | 34mm 5 days | 55mm 8 days | 80mm 12 days | 43mm 9 days |
| Sunshine | 8.6h ☀︎ 86% | 9.4h ☀︎ 86% | 10.5h ☀︎ 88% | 11.1h ☀︎ 85% | 12.5h ☀︎ 89% | 13.6h ☀︎ 94% | 13.9h ☀︎ 97% | 12.5h ☀︎ 93% | 11.2h ☀︎ 90% | 9.7h ☀︎ 86% | 8.5h ☀︎ 83% | 8.1h ☀︎ 83% |
| Wind | W · 30 km/h | W · 29 km/h | W · 29 km/h | N · 27 km/h | W · 25 km/h | NW · 21 km/h | NW · 19 km/h | NW · 18 km/h | W · 21 km/h | NW · 23 km/h | W · 26 km/h | NW · 29 km/h |
| Humidity (%) | 69% | 72% | 73% | 74% | 74% | 71% | 71% | 71% | 71% | 73% | 71% | 70% |
| Day length | 10.0h | 10.9h | 12.0h | 13.1h | 14.1h | 14.6h | 14.3h | 13.5h | 12.4h | 11.3h | 10.3h | 9.8h |
| Tourist Crowds | Low season | Low season | Shoulder season | Shoulder season | High season | High season | High season | High season | High season | High season | Shoulder season | Low season |
This centuries-old harvest festival fills Buskett Gardens with traditional Maltese folk singing, horse and donkey races,…
Valletta and Floriana fill with elaborate floats, costumed dancers, and grotesque masks for this centuries-old carnival…
Teams from around the world compete with choreographed pyrotechnic displays set to music over the Grand Harbour, best vi…
Valletta's museums, palaces, and galleries throw open their doors for a free night of art, music, and performances acros…
While standard travel wisdom crowns June for its flawless blue skies, April is the island's true sweet spot, balancing crisp maritime air and blooming terraced hills against the stifling, baked stone and relentless sun of deep summer.
Malta is a fortress of golden limestone anchored between Sicily and North Africa, where millennia of maritime conquests have piled prehistoric temples, Baroque bastions, and densely packed urban parishes onto a low, windswept rock. Most travelers treat it as an unvarying Mediterranean beach getaway, yet its calendar is wildly counterintuitive. The island registers its absolute peak visitor surge not during the sweltering dog days of August, but in raw, breezy February when winter revelry fills the ramparts. Conversely, while early summer delivers statistically spotless weather, the island becomes a sun-blasted oven long before summer officially peaks. Understanding Malta means understanding that its honey-colored stone drinks in heat and crowd energy with equal intensity, making the margins of the year feel profoundly different from what standard advice promises.
Conventional wisdom will tell you to wait for June's near-perfect meteorological readings, but April is where Malta actually makes sense. By mid-spring, the winter chill has blown off the Mediterranean, leaving the terraced fields running down to the sea unusually green and scented with wild fennel. Afternoon air sits comfortably in the high teens, warm enough to sit along the bastions of Valletta without a coat, but cool enough that climbing the sheer staircases of the capital doesn't feel like an endurance test.
Evenings during the Malta International Fireworks Festival showcase this balance at its best. Crowds gather along the water's edge at the Three Cities and across the Grand Harbour to watch pyrotechnics light up baroque facades and fortresses, wrapped in light jackets rather than sweating through linen shirts. Rain has dwindled to rare, passing showers that clear the salt haze from the sky within an hour.
May accelerates this momentum, pushing afternoon temperatures into the low twenties. Swimming becomes genuinely tempting off the rocky ledges, yet the baking intensity of summer has not yet turned the limestone streets into thermal radiators. You get the full visual drama of Malta—the cobalt water, the blinding yellow stone, the deep harbors—without having to retreat indoors during the heat of the day.
June produces nearly flawless sunshine from dawn until late twilight, and on paper, it looks like perfection. The reality is far more searing. As the island dries out, the low hills turn pale and dusty, and the limestone buildings absorb solar heat from thirteen hours of daily sun, radiating it back out long after dark. At the end of June, the ancient harvest festival of Mnarja takes over Buskett Gardens, where locals gather under the rare canopy of woodland for all-night folk singing and feasting on stewed rabbit. The gathering feels deeply rooted and atmospheric precisely because it takes shelter under trees, escaping the exposed, shimmering glare that dominates the rest of the island.
By July and August, Malta demands an entirely different rhythm. Afternoon temperatures frequently register in the mid-thirties, and walking anywhere between midday and late afternoon is an exercise in seeking narrow slivers of shadow. The sea provides relief, but the famous blue waters around Comino and the rocky shores of Gozo are heavily trafficked by speedboats and day-trippers seeking escape.
August is a peculiar month: hot, humid, and visibly thick with haze. If you come during the height of summer, plan your days around the water or the thick interior walls of parish churches, and do your living after eight in the evening when harbor breezes finally break the daytime stillness.
September brings a dramatic exhale. While temperatures still hover near thirty degrees at midday, the sun loses its punishing edge, and the sea remains as warm as bathwater. It is the month when the island settles back into a manageable cadence, with harbor ferries running unhurried between Valletta and the Three Cities.
October is arguably the most seductive time to experience Malta's urban core. The weather remains comfortably warm, but the light softens, lending the enclosed wooden balconies and narrow alleys of Rabat a muted, cinematic glow. Autumn storms begin to roll across the channel from Sicily, delivering dramatic, brief downpours that wash the dust from the stones, followed immediately by clear skies.
During Notte Bianca in October, Valletta stays alive until dawn. Museums, state rooms, and private palazzos open their doors to the public, and the capital's steep grid of limestone streets fills with musicians and theater performances. Because the night air is balmy rather than oppressive, walking through the illuminated city feels effortless, offering an architectural intimacy that midsummer's heat flatly denies.
Malta's winter comes as a shock to those expecting subtropical warmth. While frost is practically unknown, the maritime wind off the open Mediterranean cuts straight through stone walls. November is the rainiest month on the calendar, punctuated by rolling thunderstorms that whip foam across the harbor walls. December and January are cool, damp, and quiet, with afternoon highs rarely exceeding the mid-teens and nighttime air feeling colder than the thermometer indicates due to pervasive coastal moisture.
Yet the biggest contradiction of the Maltese year lands squarely in February. By our numbers, February combines some of the coolest, dampest conditions of the year with the single highest crowd level of any month. The catalyst is the Malta Carnival. Valletta and neighboring Floriana are overtaken by grotesque floats, brass bands, and masked costumed troupes parading through the cool streets.
Visiting during Carnival requires an embrace of the cold wind and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. If you arrive expecting a sleepy off-season retreat, the packed alleys and blaring parade speakers will disorient you. March slowly eases the island out of this festive frenzy, bringing longer sunlit hours and quiet terraced landscapes, setting the stage for the spring revival.
Top sights and attractions to build your days around once you know when to go.
The Hypogeum of Ħal Saflieni is a Neolithic subterranean structure dating to the Saflieni phase in Maltese prehistory, located in Paola, Malta. It is often simply referred to as the Hypogeum, literally meaning "underground" in Greek. The Hypogeum is thought to have been a sanctuary and necropolis, with the estimated remains of more than 7,000 people documented by archeologists, and is among the best preserved examples of the Maltese temple building culture that also produced the Megalithic Temples and Xagħra Stone Circle.
St John's Co-Cathedral is a Catholic co-cathedral in Valletta, Malta, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. It was built by the Order of St. John between 1573 and 1578, having been commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière as the Conventual Church of Saint John.
The National Stadium, locally also referred to as Ta' Qali, officially known as Grawnd Nazzjonali, is a stadium located in Ta' Qali, Malta. The stadium, which also contains the headquarters of the Malta Football Association, seats 16,997 people and is, by far, the largest stadium in the country. It serves as the national football stadium of Malta and is the home stadium of the Malta national football team. The stadium, together with three other stadiums, also hosts the Maltese Premier League.
Mnajdra is a megalithic temple complex found on the southern coast of the Mediterranean island of Malta. Mnajdra is approximately 497 metres (544 yd) from the Ħaġar Qim megalithic complex. Mnajdra was built around the fourth millennium BCE; the Megalithic Temples of Malta are among the most ancient religious sites on Earth, described by the World Heritage Sites committee as "unique architectural masterpieces." In 1992, UNESCO recognized the Mnajdra complex and four other Maltese megalithic structures as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In 2009, work was completed on a protective tent.
Ħaġar Qim is a megalithic temple complex found on the Mediterranean island of Malta, dating from the Ġgantija phase (3600–3200 BC). The Megalithic Temples of Malta are among the most ancient religious sites on Earth, described by the World Heritage Sites committee as "unique architectural masterpieces." In 1992 UNESCO recognized Ħaġar Qim and four other Maltese megalithic structures as World Heritage Sites. V. Gordon Childe, Professor of Prehistoric European Archeology and director of the Institute of Archaeology in the University of London from 1946 to 1957 visited Ħaġar Qim. He wrote, "I have been visiting the prehistoric ruins all round the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia to Egypt, Greece and Switzerland, but I have nowhere seen a place as old as this one."
The Ħal Tarxien Prehistoric Complex is an archaeological complex in Tarxien, within the Port region of Malta. They date to approximately 3400 BC. The site was accepted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992 along with the other Megalithic temples on the island of Malta.
The Grandmaster's Palace, officially known as The Palace, is a palace in Valletta, Malta. It was built between the 16th and 18th centuries as the palace of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, who ruled Malta from 1530 to 1798, and was also known as the Magisterial Palace. When the knights were expelled by Napoleonic France, it became the National Palace. During the period of British rule beginning in 1800, it was the Governor's Palace.
The Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Paul, commonly known as St Paul's Cathedral or the Mdina Cathedral, is a Catholic cathedral in Mdina, Malta, dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle. The cathedral was founded in the 12th century, and according to tradition it stands on the site where Roman governor Publius met St. Paul following his shipwreck on Malta. The original cathedral was severely damaged in the 1693 Sicily earthquake, so it was dismantled and rebuilt in the Baroque style to a design of the Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafà between 1696 and 1705. The cathedral is regarded as Gafà's masterpiece.
The Auberge de Castille, historically in full known as the Auberge de Castille et Portugal, is an auberge in Valletta, Malta. The auberge is located at Castile Place, close to Saint James Cavalier, the Malta Stock Exchange, and the Upper Barrakka Gardens. It sits at the highest point of Valletta and overlooks Floriana and the Grand Harbour area.
Għar Dalam [A] is a 144-metre long phreatic tube and cave, located in the outskirts of Birżebbuġa, Malta. The cave contains the bones of animals that lived on Malta during the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. It has lent its name to the early Neolithic-aged Għar Dalam phase in Maltese prehistory, and is viewed as one of Malta's most important national monuments. Pottery similar to that found in Stentinello was found at Għar Dalam, but lacking details such as stamp decorations.
The Our Lady of Victory Church, formerly known as the Saint Anthony the Abbot Church, was the first church and building completed in Valletta, Malta. In 1566, following the Great Siege of Malta, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette and his Order showed interest to build a church in the name of the Nativity of the Virgin as a form of thanksgiving; the construction was funded by de Valette.
The Ta' Ħaġrat temples in Mġarr, Malta are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with several other Megalithic temples. They are amongst the world's oldest religious sites. The larger Ta' Ħaġrat temple dates from the Ġgantija phase ; the smaller temple is dated to the Saflieni phase.
Places from Wikidata and Wikipedia.
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