Sunday 17 / November / 2024
Muscat: The Sultanate’s average temperature registered a 3.6 per cent rise in 2015 compared with that in 2014, with the mercury touching 28.7 degrees Celsius in 2015 as against 27.7 degrees recorded in the prior year.
Over the five-year period starting in 2011, the average temperature hovered at over 27 degrees during the first two years, then shot up to 28.2 degrees in 2013 only to cool down to 27.7 degrees in 2014, before scaling up to 28.7 degrees last year.
These interesting details about the Sultanate’s weather over the 2011-2015 period are found in the latest climate statistics bulletin published by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
Relative humidity, on the other hand, decreased -7.1 per cent to 48.5 per cent in 2015 compared with 52.2 per cent in the previous year.
Over the aforementioned five-year period, 2015 was the only year when relative humidity fell below 50 per cent. The highest humidity was recorded in 2013 at 54.3 per cent while in 2011 and 2012 the figures stood at 51 per cent and 50.2 per cent respectively, the NCSI report said.
Significantly, last year the Sultanate received considerably less amount of rain at 83.7 mm, marking a decline of -14.6 per cent as against 98 mm of rain registered in 2014. Year 2013, again recorded the highest rainfall during 2011-2015 at 136 mm, showing a whopping 90.5 per cent surge over prior year’s 71.4 mm. The precipitation in 2011 stood at 92.6 mm.
Meanwhile, last year was relatively less windy, with wind-speed coming down nearly -3 per cent to 6.6 knots compared with 6.8 knots in 2014. As with humidity and rain, year 2013 witnessed the highest wind-speed during the five-year period at 8.3 knots. Wind speed in 2012 recorded a 3 per cent rise over that of the prior year to reach 7 knots.
Last year, summer saw temperature shooting up to as much as 39.2 degrees Celsius while the minimum recorded was 27.4. People of the Sultanate enjoyed a blissful winter last year with temperature in the range of 18.9-29.8 degrees Celsius. Winter humidity averaged 52.2 per cent while it was 44.7 per cent in the summer of 2015. Also, last summer received average rainfall of 46.3 mm compared with 37.4 mm in winter. Notably, the winter of 2014 experienced a markedly higher amount of rain averaging 53.8 mm.
Meanwhile, last year the highest average temperature was recorded in the Governorate of Al Buraimi at 37.9 degrees Celsius in July. The Governorate of A'Dakhiliyah experienced the coolest month of 2015 with an average temperature of 18.3 degrees in January.
Further, last year The Governorate of South A'Sharqiyah received the highest average rainfall at 116.5 mm in June while average monthly humidity peaked in August at 73 per cent in Dhofar.
