It is now the most unstable time of the year in this corner of the world... The
SA Weather Service has issued warnings of very cold, wet and
stormy conditions in the
Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape today. Further heavy falls of rain (50+ mm) are expected in many places in the morning mainly over the south-western mountains of the Western Cape and the Overberg region, exactly where we are building the summer house. I am a little concerned...though the chief engineer assured me that the site is secured, I can feel the butterflies in my guts.
Some Cape Town suburbs are also severely
affected by floods, especially in the Cape Flats. At the same time, the Service warned on TV that conditions favourable for the development of runaway fires were expected in places in the KwaZulu-Natal interior, also in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga low velds...
These things happen every year, but recently the storms have become longer and more fierce. The reports of incidents abound these days... For example two barges ran aground in rough seas yesterday...one at Jacobs Bay and the other at Knysna... and the Weather Service said very rough seas with waves more than 5 m were expected along the whole coast south of the Orange river, which in essence means the entire west coast.
Destructive waves of up to 10 m were expected between Port St Johns and St Helena bay, our previous favourite place of retreat.
The Service also said that gale to strong gale force (65 - 85km/h) westerly to north-westerly winds were expected between Lamberts Bay and Port St Johns, spreading to Durban by tonight. Meanwhile, the interior of the country remains relatively calm. There may be heavy rain in the Villiersdorp municipality, but thanks to the clever re-forestation programs there that
I mentioned before, no warnings of landslides or mudslides were issued. Now I realise the full meaning of Kol's words when he said that choosing the place to build the house was more about climate and location rather than facilities and infrastructure.
The good news...at least for us ski maniacs...is that the high ground of the Western Cape, the south-western high ground of Northern Cape, the high ground areas of the Eastern Cape and Lesotho could expect snow. This means that there will hopefully be a thick snow cover in the
Tiffindell skiing resort as soon as the end of the month.
There are warnings that there is a possibility of heavy snowfalls on the northern mountains of the Eastern Cape and over southern Lesotho tonight. All this severe weather is expected to continue
until the weekend.
The most serious incident is the one where a group of students were cut off (and still are!)
on an island off the west coast. It turns out one of them is a relative of a colleague of mine... It is a small world... We are hoping that things will develop well as the weather is expected to improve somewhat in the next days...