Drought-hit areas hope for rain

2009-11-10 09:10

Cape Town - As another cold front moves towards the country, residents of the southern Cape are hoping that rain will bring relief to the area, which is suffering from the worst drought in living memory.

More than 50mm rain fell from Saturday morning to Monday morning in the southwestern part of the Western Cape, but no more than 10mm fell in the dry southern Cape.

Carlton Fillis, weather forecaster in the Cape Town weather office, said another cold front was heading for Cape Town, possibly bringing rain on Thursday and Friday, and it could move to the southern Cape on Saturday.

Dr Peter Johnston, a climatologist with the climate system analysis group at the University of Cape Town said this much rain at this time of the year was not normal, although 60mm to 70mm rain had been recorded in Cape Town in November in previous years.

Wetter summer predicted

He did say, however, that they had predicted a wetter summer for November, December and January.

"We usually get between 20mm and 40mm of rain in November (in Cape Town). Now we got this amount of rain in only two days."

Despite the heavy rains, disaster management officials in Cape Town, the Overberg and on the West Coast said no serious damage was caused.

Boland residents were also spared serious damage. According to Leon Morta, the Stellenbosch fire department chief, a few houses in Kylemore outside Stellenbosch had damaged roofs and some of the houses had become wet inside. These homes were provided with plastic coverings.

Charlotte Powell, spokesperson for the City of Cape Town disaster management, said people in informal settlements such as Khayelitsha and Philippi had been affected. The Liesbeek River nearly burst its banks.

76 accidents

ER24 spokesperson Tristan Wadeley said there had been a total of 76 accidents on roads in the Cape metropole between Friday evening and Monday morning.

"At one stage, paramedics were coming across accidents while on the way to other accidents."

Soft rain had fallen since Sunday evening in the Southern Cape, but it was too little to make a difference to dam levels.

Between Sunday morning 08:00 and Monday afternoon 13:00, about 11mm was measured at Witfontein near George.

At the same time, 10mm fell at George Airport and in Plettenberg Bay.

In Knysna, 8.6mm was measured, in Oudtshoorn 6mm, in Riversdal 4.4mm and 0.8mm was measured in Stilbaai and Beaufort West.

- Reporting by Marlene Neethling, Jana Breytenbach, Jan Gerber and Tisha Steyn.

- Die Burger