A line of rain shower as seen from Zurrieq falling from the base of stratocumulus opacus praecipitatio cloud which was observed to be very clearly aligned with the severe gale WNW wind gusts (Force 9) of that late afternoon and also with the cloud alignment in the visible satellite images of the fourth and fifth thumbnails respectively. The first and second thumbnails are photos of the very rough sea at Ghar Lapsi which were photographed in between showers as the weather was extremely variable in sync with the Mistral cloud arrangement visible on the satellite images in thumbnail. The third thumbnail shows a fallen tree near the Luqa airport in the vicinity proving the severity of the wind. The Mistral wind event was the result of a deepening low pressure system that crossed the Central Mediterranean as indicated on the seventh thumbnail contrasting with higher pressure around it and hence dragging very strong air currents from the Rhone Valley towards it as shown in the surface wind field of the eighth thumbnail. The weather sounding on the sixth thumbnail indicated a moist and moderately unstable airmass up to an altitude of around 3km favouring the formation of cumuliform clouds eventually becoming the photographed stratocumulus but not thunderstorm cumulonimbus clouds. Very strong wind fields are also noticed from the sounding particularly at the surface and especially the upper-level winds or jet stream which favoured the continued intensification of the low pressure.