Incoming

Cape Town’s first big storm of the year is due this weekend, described on surfers’ website Wavescape as follows:

A moerse storm smacks Cape Town this Saturday with the first of a double frontal burst – the first serious beast of the season… just look at the length of the wind below. Basically it’s a stab wound that bleeds from the ice-shelf right up to your tannie’s koeksusters cooling on her stoep at Stilbaai. It’s the ingrown toenail of a fierce oceanic convulsion, dug out with the scalpel of your childhood veruka, the deepest root canal of all your evils.

Mmmkay.

Here’s what Eumetsat shows:

strm1

Which doesn’t look that bad – yet. Further investigation shows that the pressure will dip as low as 940mb though, which is pretty scary, based on the fact that we’re currently sat at 1011mb and Hurricane Katrina was 920mb when it made landfall. (Although not in Cape Town, obviously.)  

I love this sort of weather, even though we’re going to see winds close on 100kph. I hope to get out and about with the camera, like I did last August, which was spectacular.

So assuming we make it through in one piece, what of next week? Wavescape has that covered:

The storm swell is expected to peak at a very steep, short frequency surge to 20 feet by Saturday evening and into Sunday before it boosts to 25 feet on Sunday afternoon, with Monday huge too, Tuesday cranking as the wind eases. The whole coast between Agulhas and the Wild Coast is absolutely off its face on Monday and Tuesday, and solid grinding South swell lasts along the southern Cape all week.

That’s like… totally gnarly, dude.

10 thoughts on “Incoming

  1. That weather report is totally rad and mental, chommie; I reckon you should take some pics while riding a ginormous wave, or at least before being washed away by one, we want true citizen journalism here.

    po´s last blog post was: Dear Jacob. (Note: 6000 miles… is not responsible for the content of external internet sites)

  2. Joy-Anne > Wine. I like the wine idea.

    Po > Hmm. Look out for that: “He died doing what she loved” headline on Monday.

  3. Don’t worry about it getting down to Katrina levels of low pressure,a minimum sea temperature of 27c is needed for hurricanes to develop. Put a toe in the water off CT and you’ll know that’s not going to happen!

  4. D > Still means it’s going to be pretty windy. Pool down to a miserable 14C. Still, on the plus side, I guess that means no hurricanes in the back garden either.

  5. It’s about to tip down here in Blighty.

    Might get windy.

    Might get to 14 degrees.

    It’s supposed to be late Spring.

    Just saying… 😉

  6. Well the good weather we had in sunny Mansfield last week has well and truly gone. Nothing but crappy rain for the last 2 or 3 days! Sounds like surfs up dude

    Wiggy´s last blog post was: It’s gonna be tight… (Note: 6000 miles… is not responsible for the content of external internet sites)

  7. Loving it man! I’ve been hearing all these people at work bitch about the weather and I just sit here going “wheeee I can’t waaaaait”

  8. Andrew > No bad thing.

    GaiB > Well, you know the answer. 🙂
    P.S. Please only post once. Thanks. 😉

    Wiggy > Beeeg waves.

    Goblin > I know. Brilliant, isn’t it?

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