Wet weather expected to bring some drought relief

Binary_Bark

Binary_Bark

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Some good News for our GP mates

CAPE TOWN - After last summer’s failed rainfall over most of eastern South Africa, drought has gripped many parts of the nation with widespread water restrictions in place, while some towns have completely run dry.

Thankfully the El Niño event which was a major contributor to inhibiting our summer rain last season has since totally fizzled out.

As a result we have seen a relatively normal start to the spring rains for most areas in the form of thundershowers since the middle of October.

Although this is optimistic and hopefully a sign of things to come; with rising springtime temperatures, evaporation rates over the interior remain high and for this reason dam levels have still been dropping over the last two months.

The good news is that current predictions indicate that significant rainfall is expected over the next few days.

From Wednesday there is a high probability of showers and thundershowers all across the highveld and the eastern escarpment, as well as toward the east coast.

The northern and eastern Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal are the areas expected to receive the most rainfall. If the weather prediction models are correct, there could be more than 100mm for some areas before the end of the weekend, while much over the eastern interior is likely to get over 50mm.

Will this be enough to bring an end to the drought? The short answer is no but if widespread significant rainfall does take place as forecast it will certainly be good for farmers that are planting and should have a positive impact over the next week or two on the dismal dam levels.
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Source
 
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We had a 5000L Jojo tank installed at work a week ago, its already overflowing since this morning.

Just shows you how much water goes to ground.
 
Hemps said:
Just shows you how much water goes to ground.
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Some interesting trivia....
1mm rain means that every square meter is covered with water with the height of 1mm. One meter is 1000mm, so the total volume is 1000 x 1000 x 1 = 10^6 cubic mm or 10^3 cubic cm or 1 cubic dm, which is one litre. So for every mm of rain you get one litre per square meter.
 
Does anyone know what the predicted outlook is for the next few years?

Was this an anomaly or is this part of a long term climate change?
 
Hemps said:
We had a 5000L Jojo tank installed at work a week ago, its already overflowing since this morning.

Just shows you how much water goes to ground.
Click to expand...

How long does it take to get a 5kl tank to fill? Wouldn't the water go vrot by then?
 
Rickster said:
How long does it take to get a 5kl tank to fill? Wouldn't the water go vrot by then?
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Not sure why they went with such a large tank but assume they going to have put in chlorine at some point.
Two gutters going into that tank and filled in less than week.
 
The_MAC said:
Does anyone know what the predicted outlook is for the next few years?

Was this an anomaly or is this part of a long term climate change?
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We should see an improvement in rain over the coming years. We are however recording the highest global average temperatures ever and that's only expected to worsen. These high temperatures contribute to increased evaporation.
 
geezer said:
Some interesting trivia....
1mm rain means that every square meter is covered with water with the height of 1mm. One meter is 1000mm, so the total volume is 1000 x 1000 x 1 = 10^6 cubic mm or 10^3 cubic cm or 1 cubic dm, which is one litre. So for every mm of rain you get one litre per square meter.
Click to expand...

Some interesting trivia....
1mm rain means that every m² is covered with water with the height of 1mm. One meter is 1000mm, so the total volume is 1000 x 1000 x 1 = 10[SUP]6[/SUP] mm³ or 10[SUP]3[/SUP] cm³ or 1 dm³, which is one litre. So for every mm of rain you get one litre per m².

Sorry my eyes were bleeding...:D
 
ScottulusMaximus said:
We had the driest season in 30 years, pretty dramatic...
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That's what I'm saying.

Isn't El Nino seasonal i.e. annual

But this time around it was the worst in 30 years.

What is the predicted outlook over the next few years, will it be like this for years to come or is this a "once-off" occurance
 
The_MAC said:
That's what I'm saying.

Isn't El Nino seasonal i.e. annual

But this time around it was the worst in 30 years.

What is the predicted outlook over the next few years, will it be like this for years to come or is this a "once-off" occurance
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El Nino is every 7 years or so.
 
web said:
Some interesting trivia....
1mm rain means that every m² is covered with water with the height of 1mm. One meter is 1000mm, so the total volume is 1000 x 1000 x 1 = 10[SUP]6[/SUP] mm³ or 10[SUP]3[/SUP] cm³ or 1 dm³, which is one litre. So for every mm of rain you get one litre per m².

Sorry my eyes were bleeding...:D
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:crylaugh:
 
ScottulusMaximus said:
El Nino is every 7 years or so.
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How often do El Niños occur?

El Niños occur every three to five years but may come as frequently as every two years or as rarely as every seven years. Typically, El Niños occur more frequently than La Niñas. Each event usually lasts nine to 12 months. They often begin to form in spring, reach peak strength between December and January, and then decay by May of the following year.

Their strength can vary considerably between cycles. One of the strongest in recent decades was the El Niño that developed the winter of 1997-98. "Everyone associates the word El Niño with that event, but that was a rare, once-in-a-century event," notes L'Heureux.

El Niño was originally named El Niño de Navidad by Peruvian fishermen in the 1600s. This name was used for the tendency of the phenomenon to arrive around Christmas. Climate records of El Niño go back millions of years, with evidence of the cycle found in ice cores, deep sea muds, coral, caves and tree rings
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http://www.livescience.com/3650-el-nino.html

Some nice in depth stuff here:
https://www.climate.gov/enso

And a beginneres guide here:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/what-el-niño–southern-oscillation-enso-nutshell
 
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