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Cold front update: Cape Town just got a month of rain in a single day
Update, Friday 25 Oct, 4pm: The South African Weather Service has issued an update on the rainfall figures for stations across Cape Town.
Measured from midnight to 2pm on Friday afternoon, Kirstenbosch has received more than 90mm within those 14 hours.
Hermanus has now received 63mm over the same 14 hour period.
Central Cape Town has received 56mm, SAWS notes.
Grabouw, which lies near Cape Town’s Theewaterskloof Dam, has also received 50mm of rain since midnight.
The service has however noted that these are “preliminary” figures, so these amounts could be subject to change.
*Preliminary* rainfall data from midnight till 14:00 SAST today (25 October 2019). High rainfall totals measured in parts of the south-western Cape:
Kirstenbosch- 93mm
Hermanus- 63mm
Strand- 59mm
Cape Town City Molteno- 56mm
Cape Town WO- 53mm
Grabouw- 50mm— SA Weather Service (@SAWeatherServic) October 25, 2019
Original article: Unusually for an October, Cape Town is currently experiencing what the South African Weather Service is calling “winter” cold fronts.
The system, which made landfall last night in the city, has dropped a lot of water across the region.
In fact, in an update on Friday, SAWS noted that Kirstenbosch received more than 80mm of rain in the past 24 hours (between 8am Thursday and 8am Friday). Considering it’s still raining over much of the city, this figure could grow even larger.
Rainfall figures measured at 8am this morning (25 October 2019). Kirstenbosch recieved 84mm. How much did you measure? #rainfall pic.twitter.com/VvRC9J4PO0
— SA Weather Service (@SAWeatherServic) October 25, 2019
To put this perspective, the City of Cape Town notes that neighbouring Newlands on average receives 84mm of rainfall across the entire month of October.
Just 12.5mm of rain had fallen in the area in the first 20 days of October.
Notably, the Southern Cape town of Hermanus received 20mm of rain within the past 24 hours. Reports suggest that parts of the town are flooded.
This is from Curtis Jl Bailey. Flooding in parts of Hermanus in the Western Cape this morning. Warning for flooding still active this morning over the south-western Cape. pic.twitter.com/bOAQrsQIkX
— SA Weather Service (@SAWeatherServic) October 25, 2019
The south-western Cape doesn’t receive much rainfall in October, but more precipitation is expected on Sunday when a second cold front arrives.
SAWS has issued advisories and watches for both systems, which you can read about in more detail here.
The “winter” weather is expected to last until Tuesday.
Feature image: Cape Town’s Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, by Mig Gilbert via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0, resized)
