Thursday

Not today, obviously. Today is… [checks]… Today is Monday, and all is well.

Still, if all continues to go well (and, given the way this country “works”, that’s certainly not guaranteed), Thursday is but… [checks]… three days away. And it’s going to be a bit wet and wild by all accounts.

I went to my usual contacts and looked to see just how large this allegedly “large” winter storm was going to be, and here’s what I found:

Grey bit on the left: South America. Grey bit on the right: Africa.
Quite a lot of the intervening South Atlantic: large winter storm.

Blimey.

I felt compelled to break into song:

According to all sources (what sources now),
The street’s the place to go (we better hurry up).
‘Cause [Thursday in the early hours] for the first time (first time)
Just about half-past [two] (half past [two])
For the first time in history
It’s gonna start raining… er… rain.

It’s raining rain, hallelujah!
It’s raining rain, amen!

Just for absolute clarity, I have changed a couple of the lyrics because nothing relating to this story is happening tonight, just about half past ten. No, the first rain is actually more likely to fall sometime after midnight going into Thursday morning. And this won’t actually be the first rain in history, because there has been rain previously. Although not very much since 2014.

One of the few bits that I didn’t change was the advice about the street being “the place to go”. However, with hindsight, I probably should have done something about this. It does seems like a very bad idea when you consider it more carefully. The forecast winds are such that there could actually be some structural damage, and so I’d actually feel much better if you were all safely tucked up somewhere inside. In fact, given the possible severity of this storm, the street actually seems to be one of the worst possible places to go. I don’t know which sources were being quoted in the song, but they seem poorly informed and probably not worth listening to. Still, we’re all adults here and we can make our own decisions. I’m just saying that going to the street wouldn’t be one of mine.

Currently, it appears that this large winter storm isn’t nearly as large as the large(r) winter storm which came through last June. And that’s probably why we’re not really panicking about it just yet. That was the largest storm to hit Cape Town since 1984, whereas this will only be the largest storm to hit Cape Town since that one did.

That day, according to all sources, Kommetjie was the place to go and so I spent the afternoon down there ‘togging waves. But that was actually really great advice and so they must surely have been different sources from the ones above.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the approaching nastiness for the next couple of days, so why not pop to Facebook and hit that like button (if that’s something you’re into, 2018-style) to be kept up to date with that and other stuff on the blog?

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