European seaside destinations are always a bit of a lottery in the off-season, weather-wise. But no one can guarantee sunny days during your visit, even in July, right? Personally, I'm always prepared for the worst case scenario => it's going to piss and piss and piss and the alternative plan becomes sitting around cafes dashing to the bar in the hotel lobby. Fortunately, that didn't happen in the case of the Malta trip... maybe only partially :)
Anyway, when a bad weather situation happens in January, when you pay €28 for a return ticket (Ryanair from Nuremberg), it definitely doesn't hurt as much as in the high season, when the ticket costs half of your salary and you are squeezed in a crowd of equally overwhelmed tourists at the aforementioned bar.