Tag: weather

Behold The Fetch

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If you are currently residing in Cape Town, you cannot have failed to notice the somewhat extreme meteorological conditions that are prevailing this morning. The rain – and there’s a lot of rain – is travelling horizontally past our windows, assisted in no small part by the ridiculously strong and blustery northwester. It’s dark, it’s grey – dark grey – and it’s cold. Cold, dark grey.

Winter. She is here.

But where did this remarkable weather come from, I hear you ask. Well, here’s your answer: :

This was the situation at midnight last night. Now, ten hours later, Cape Town (central, “helpfully” indicated by a tiny red dot) has slipped underneath that pointy line indicating a phat cold front, linked to those double-barrel low pressure centres. And that’s why we’re getting what we’re getting right now.

But, while windguru is predicting swells of up to 7 metres for the Cape coast this weekend (and that lengthy fetch shows you why), any avid surfers will probably be disappointed, as Spike from wavescape indicates:

Gather yer nuggets Wednesday as rising 12ft beasts smack thy chops stukkend. Dik SSW surf swells in glassy sea > light NW. Epic. FB 3′ early, 4-5′ in arvi. Cooks.Thursday neargale NW smelts 10′ mess, FB 4′ in stiff offshores. By lunch, strong SW thro. DIK RAIN drench from 8am. Friday heaving 5-10′ storm sea, ragged SW winds > S. Heavy squalls subside a bit. C-c-cold. FB ragged side going onshore. Saturday heaving 5-10′ storm junk in strong S > SSE. FB kak. Sunday lekker calm, leftover 3-5′ S swell. FB fun 3′.

Thanks for that, Spike. Lucid as ever. Consider my chops smacked stukkend.

The forecast for the weekend does suggest that things will calm down a little, although if you were expecting a hefty tan by Monday morning, you may be barking up the wrong country.

Me? I’ll be heading down to Cape Agulhas, where those mad swells will hopefully bring some mad photo opportunities.
And yes, I’ll be taking my thermals along with me…

Just found…

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iWeathar.co.za – comprehensive weather information from around South Africa, beautifully presented and easy to use. Are you watching SA Weather Service?

I’m down in Cape Agulhas this weekend. You can see whether I’m having a hot or wet time of it by clicking through to view the latest conditions in nearby Struisbaai.

For other locations around SA (and there are LOTS) click here.

Capetonian woman continually surprised by events

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News just in:

Capetonian Margaret Wilson (61) of Diep River, has admitted to being “almost permanently bewildered” by what she describes as “a continuous stream of surprising events” which she claims are plaguing her life.

Yesterday, my son-in-law asked if I had registered the card in my cellphone. I asked him why I needed to do this and he told me that I would be cut off if I didn’t. Who makes these silly rules up at the drop of a hat?
If they are going to do these things then they should at least tell you by sending you text messages, taking out full page advertisements in the newspapers or mentioning it on Carte Blanche or Cape Talk. If it wasn’t for Graham, I would never have known.

Mrs Wilson, who lives alone, was further incensed by the news that electricity prices would rise in Cape Town on July 1st:

I thought Graham was making this up when he told me. They did this last July too, although I’ll be surprised if this trend continues and they do it again next year. It’s going to cost me much more: since that silly loadshedding ended, I’ve been using as much electricity as I can to make up for the bits I missed. It’s difficult sleeping at night with all the lights on, but at least it keeps the burglars away.
But I don’t know where I am going to find the money. If I had known about this, I would have saved up. It’s like the petrol – you never know where you stand with that. They seem to change the price every few weeks. They should publicise these things. It’s very confusing.

When asked if she ever watched the news, Mrs Wilson said yes, although she only watches the SABC news in Afrikaans – which she doesn’t speak – “just to check Riaan Cruywagen is still alive”. She also mentioned that she only bought newspapers in order to line the bottom of her cats’ litter tray:

Pickles and Fifi just don’t seem to want to go out at the moment and I can’t say that I blame them. It’s been so cold and wet for the last few weeks. I really don’t like these cold snaps – we had them last year as well as I remember – while that football tournament was on. It just seems to get cold for a few months before it gets warmer again. Those weather people on the telly are no good either – they just say it’s going to be cold – they never tell you why. Still, I prefer this weather to when it’s too hot. I can’t stand the heat, you know?

Mrs Wilson is looking forward to watching the Super 15 semi-final from Newlands on Saturday.

Graham is going along. We love the rugby. It will be great to hear the whole crowd getting behind the local team.
I’ll be very surprised if they don’t.

(I’m submitting this post to the Southern Suburbs Tatler.)

Heart v Head

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I desperately want(ed) to get down to the coast this weekend. The weather this week has been atrocious (once we’d got past Tuesday with its ridiculous midwinter 30 degreedness) and the wind has whipped up some epic swells around the South African coast. The weather service were warning of 7m off Agulhas. Yummy.

I love that kind of weather. It’s dramatic, elemental, Wuthering Heights kind of stuff. I would much rather wander along a beach in a gale, with crashing surf and disturbed seabirds than sit there in the baking sun, baking.
There are other considerations though. Family, for one, two and three. Coming from South Africa, rather than the UK, they are not so keen on the epic waves and howling wind. They want sunshine and warmth. They like to be able to see the sand to sit on and to dig in, rather than have it littered in smashed weed and marooned jellyfish. Suffice to say, their preferred conditions are not going to be much in evidence this weekend. And there’s more to do with two small kids in Cape Town than in a tiny village miles from anything except a windy beach and a wild sea.

Add to that the frankly rather scary conditions forecast for the Cape on Sunday – if you thought last night’s ice storm was bad, just wait – which is when we’d be doing the 230km back and it’s sadly a no-brainer. Or rather an all-brainer and a no-hearter. Not that I struggle to drive safely in storm force winds and heavy rain, but unfortunately, it has come to my attention that a lot of other people in this country do.

So I’ll be around this weekend, I think. Which makes it all the more important for you to take the few seconds required to ‘like’ the new 6000.co.za facebook page, download the 6000 miles… feed Android app or even the one for your Nokia Ovi, thanks to Nokia SA and #mobiblog.
And – big news – the 6000 miles… iPhone app is under development and should be with you shortly. Possibly even more shortly now that I’m going to be around some internet for the next few days.

So many ways to stay in touch. No excuses anymore.