One last day

…of this springlike weather before the next cold front comes through and spoils things for the weekend.

This was from this morning, and although it’s yet to make landfall, things are definitely changing already.

Still a chance to head out to horseriding (not me), so we’ll do that before the rain comes in.

Also always a chance of sharing a Kruger pic.

Hard to believe that this was just 10 days ago.

We were reliving some of the (many) great moments last night over a post-match celebratory beer, and there was talk (or at least testing-the-water talk) of another trip.

The water seemed very welcoming.

Dam good news

Cape Town’s dam levels, so often the cause of local panic, have finally risen above the percentages from this time last year. And while last year wasn’t anything to write home about water level-wise, you have to start somewhere, and being almost 41 billion litres ahead of last June is a good place to begin.

Stat attack:
That weekly change of 5.7% represents an incredible increase of 51,200 Ml.
An average of more than 7 billion litres or 2800 Olympic sized swimming pools gained each day.

And with another two cold fronts quite literally just over the horizon, we could even be looking at exceeding the levels from this time in 2021, which would put us in the incredible position of having the highest June dam levels since 2014, when all that nastiness began.

Of course, much like electricity, the best time to save water is when you have water to save, so although a nice long hot shower might be just what you need right now, maybe think of the parched, dry summertime some way ahead, and just limit yourself to a couple of minutes for the greater good.

Or better still, just stand outside for 30 seconds on Wednesday evening. Your call.

Next wave

I woke up this morning with a nasty headache. No, I hadn’t been drinking, but thanks for your attempted victim-blaming. Probably just a bit sinussy, but this was a bad one, so I drugged myself up and hid in bed for another hour. Once I was up and about, and less sore, I decided (using my basic knowledge of biochemistry) that a gym workout might get rid of the congestion, noradrenaline production and all that…

And it did. Mostly.

I would have gone on a run, but… well…

And while I’m not scared of a bit of cold, it’s actually just a really unpleasant day outside and so I decided that I’d much rather stay in and play with my kettlebells.

Careful now.

Feeling better for it, though.

The next wave – in the form of that blue and green cold front – has now reached us and unleashed a few early torrential downpours, demonstrating its power and unrestrained wet rage. 1.5mm precipitation be damned: it dropped 5mm in less than 10 minutes. That’s taken us up to 64mm so far in the last 7 days and we’ve still more to come again this evening and then a big one to look forward to (careful now, again) on Wednesday.

And early forecasts suggest that could give us another 50mm before lunchtime on Thursday.

Wrap up warmly. And take an umbrella.

Wet one

The big cold front which was expected to drop in at about 9pm this evening has – according to the word on the street* – already hit Hout Bay.

It’s horrible here

were the exact words that were used, prompting me to immediately type (and then tactfully delete) my reply:

I know. What’s the weather like?

And I do know.

But looking over that way, it does look as if the apocalypse might finally – mercifully – be upon us.

Thus, tonight will be full on Wuthering Heights stuff. Elemental. Cold, windy and wet, with Catherine’s ghost knocking on the window up to 50mm of rain forecast in the next 24 hours. And there’s another 50 on the way early next week.

This isn’t unusual for Cape Town in late autumn, but it is rather unpleasant. The draining effect of the cold, dreary weather is exacerbated by loadshedding, and in turn exacerbates it right back by increasing demand for more heating and light. In addition (of course), solar panels don’t help at all when there’s no sun, so backup batteries are charged from the grid (when it’s on) and that adds to demand and… er… exacerbates loadshedding.

A recipe for misery.

Except of course that every cloud (and I’m looking specifically about those ones rapidly approaching from the South Atlantic) has a silver lining. It wasn’t so long ago that we didn’t have any water at all in this corner of the continent, and we’d do well to remember the stress that little episode caused.

If (and it is always an if) the forecasts are correct, then we could be looking at anything up to 8 or maybe even 10% added to the dams by this time next week.

So always look on the bright side of life (unless you’re in one of those 4½ hour slots of darkness, during which time, there is no bright available).

* a Whatsapp message from the horse-riding instructor.