By ROD AMNER
Jim Cambray recorded 7.6mm of the wet stuff at Park Road for 30 June to 6 July – including rainfall and several heavy dews. Paul Maylam received 6.1 mm in Cathcart Street for the same period. Temperatures ranged from 9-24 degrees Celcius.
For June 2022, the Cambrays measured 29.9mm, below the long-term average of 35.5mm but above the median of 26.6mm. Just over 22mm of the month’s total fell over the week of 23-29 June.
Historically the lowest total for June in Makhanda was 0mm in 1996, and the highest was 173mm in 2011, “again showing the variability in our rainfall pattern”, Cambray remarked.
Meanwhile, the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said there was a 70 per cent chance that the protracted La Nina event – which has contributed to above-average rainfall in most parts of South Africa over the past two seasons – may persist into 2023.
Hopefully, it will be ‘third time lucky’ for the drought-stressed Eastern Cape. Day Zero is looming for Gqeberha, and Settlers Dam is still at a precariously low 30 per cent.
The long-range outlook for above-normal spring/summer rain in Makana is (tentatively) positive, according to SAWX.co.za:
La Nina refers to the large-scale cooling of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean every two to seven years.
If this phenomenon persists into 2023, this would be only the third so-called ‘triple-dip La Nina’ on record since 1950, WMO said.
The above-average rainfall in Southern Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia could be linked to the phenomenon, as could the predictions for an above-average Atlantic hurricane season.
However, WMO stressed the impacts of naturally occurring climate events like La Nina were intensifying due to a warming planet.
“Human-induced climate change amplifies the impacts of naturally-occurring events like La Nina and is increasingly influencing our weather patterns,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
