Tag: storm

Jason Hayden Cape Town storm pic is wow

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There were thousands of tweets and much general sharing and admiration of a photo, apparently taken by one Jason Hayden, of the storm which hit Cape Town early on Saturday morning and woke up all the children in the city by about 5:30am.

[EDIT: Nov 17 2017 But then, suddenly  3½ years after I wrote this post, Jason got in touch, angrily demanding that I tell him where I had got the photo from (the hint’s in the first line of the post, mate) and objecting to my sharing it, so here it isn’t:

 

[nowt]

 

 

Ugh.]

 

What followed for anything south of Hospital Bend was a day of high winds, heavy rain and general seeking of shelter, blankets and red wine.

If you’ve checked the forecast for this week, we’re going to do it all again on Wednesday!

Things were much quieter this Monday morning, so while we’re doing a blog post of borrowed photos, how about this one from the new Kirstenbosch Treetop Canopy Walkway – “the Boomslang”?

ksr

Two very different mornings in Cape Town.

Photo credits: not Jason Hayden & Adam Harrower via twitterttp://

Cape Town storm: emergency numbers

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Apparently, it’s going to be a full on nasty afternoon and night weather wise: cold, wet, windy. A typical winter storm as we… er… head towards the end of winter, then.

The City seem more concerned about this one than usual though and have issued several warnings via radio, TV, the interweb and social media. We’re looking at snowfalls, landslides and – mystifyingly, “high fire danger” in the Karoo today.

And yes, probably snow on Table Mountain. Just much rain here right now though.

Anyway, it’s never a bad idea to have some emergency numbers to hand, should there be an emergency and you want to tell someone about it, so here you go:

  • Flooding, blocked drains and service disruptions – 0860 103 089 or SMS 31373
  • Electricity outages/disruptions – 0860 103 089 or SMS 31220.
  • Road Closures, delays on roadways and deviations – 0800 65 64 63
  • Weather Reports – Cape Town Weather Office (021 934 0749/0831), weatherline (083 123 0500), listen to alerts on the radio and television or visit www.weathersa.co.za
  • Emergencies – 107 from a landline or 021 480 7700 from a cellphone

The sooner you phone, the sooner help will arrive.

Bearing in mind that last line, I’ve given each of the numbers a quick call already: it pays to be prepared.

You can also follow the City on twitter or visit their Disaster Management website.
Also on twitter, Cape Town’s Freeway Management Service is very useful.

Grey Day

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Not a lighthouse blog. Not a lighthouse blog. Not a lighthouse blog. Not a lighthouse blog. Not a lighthouse blog. Not a lighthouse blog. Not a lighthouse blog. Not a lighthouse blog.  Really.

But driving down to Scarborough along the Western Seaboard today, we did stop off at Slangkop for a short snap session.

The waves were a little disappointing, way short of the 42-55 feet we had been promised. But the weather was dramatic, with bright sunshine and heavy squalls fighting for our attention in an icy Atlantic blast.

Other photos from the day are here.

I can’t feel my fingers

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The weekend in Cape Town kicked off with heavy rain from about 3am this morning (rather than 3am this afternoon, which makes no sense at all, obviously. My point is that it was 3am this morning, rather than any other morning).

It’s not like this wasn’t expected. One of the (many) good things about living here is that the weather is quite predictable. Stuck on the corner of Africa with literally thousands of miles of ocean almost surrounding us, it’s fairly easy to see what’s coming and warn us about it. And warned we were:

image

Wind, rain, swell – lots of each of them, which surely means a trip out with the camera tomorrow.

Currently, it’s 10.2C and the pressure is 997mb. The pool is overflowing and there are puddles all over my lawn. And with the wind increasing and the pressure still dropping, it seems like the worst is yet to come.

In the midst of all this, I have prepped with homemade soup, cottage pie, pasta “thing” and home-baked fresh bread. Looking good, then.
And then we’re off to Newlands to watch the rugby. Memories of the sleet at Italy v Paraguay in 2010 spring to mind.
I’d rather be in the stands than on the field, but right now, I’d rather just watch it on TV and enjoy my soup.