I don’t want to alarm anyone, but we’re well into May, and we’ve only really had one brief spell of rain so far this year. And that wasn’t even a cold front: it was a cut-off low that wasn’t as bad as anyone really expected it to be. But however the rain fell, it was the only rain we’ve had in over 5 months.
I’m not sure if anyone is getting a bit anxious over this situation, given Cape Town’s recent droughty history. Maybe we’ve all been concentrating too much on the twin disasters of loadshedding and the upcoming election to notice how dry it’s been, but with the dam levels at just 62%, we really could do with a bit of precipitation now, please.
Fortunately, today looks like it might actually deliver. A proper cold front, with a gusty Northwester and anything up to 12mm of rain heading in sometime this afternoon before things thankfully resolve ahead of the footy match I’m playing on Wednesday evening. And then it looks like Friday might chuck a bit more at us, if we’re lucky.
Look, I know that we all wish that summer could go on forever. The sunshine is great for generating electricity, making the decision to braai a lot easier, and encouraging us to get out and about. Not least to the pub. But that’s clearly not practical in even the medium term. You have to take the rough with the smooth when breaking your eggs to make an omelette.
So get your firewood ready, wrap up warmly, and let’s face the 3 months of cold, wet weather so that we can actually enjoy the brighter, warmer stuff when it comes around again. And we can rejoice in not having to use standpipes to get our drinking water.