You may have noticed that the sun barely showed its face yesterday, leaving a dull gloom over the island. Today, the weather page Maltese Islands Weather has provided an explanation for that, along with a stunning photo taken by the pilot Daniel Xuereb Dingli of the stratocumulus – what looks like an almost completely flat sheet of cloud covering most of the Maltese islands.

The stratocumulus formed due to the combination of an unstable atmosphere close to the ground with a stable atmosphere at higher levels, creating a situation that meteorologists refer to as a strong but vertically shallow anticyclone. This acts as a barrier to rising clouds, causing them to flatten and spread horizontally, creating the flat and low-lying cloud seen yesterday. The clouds sometimes continue growing and link up to create an extensive cloud structure that can cover a large area of sky, which typically lack the density to produce significant rainfall.

Did you notice the distinct cloud cover yesterday?