By ROGER ROWSWELL
A fair amount of rainfall was recorded for March 2022 – 69.5mm over ten rain days, marginally below the long-term average (LTA) at 74.9mm and the long term median (LT Med) at 71.4mm. The maximum and minimums recorded for March are 211.2mm (2000) and 18.5mm (1991) respectively.
The Ocean Nina Index (ONI) for January is -1.0, so it appears to be holding at this level which bodes well for reasonable, average monthly rainfall.
An interesting bit of information appeared in the Farmers Weekly 18 March 2022 edition under the heading, Budget 2022 analysis: “The Department of Forestry and Environment also prioritised R244-million over the medium term to improve the institutional capacity of and modernise meteorological services at the South African Weather Service (SAWS).”
For quite some time now, it has been my view that the weather forecasts from SAWS have been notably inaccurate and those from Yr.no, which used to be a very reliable source of weather forecasting.
For instance, on Saturday, SAWS (60%) and Yr.no predicted rain for Sunday, 3 April. We didn’t get any but had some very welcome sunshine.
This can only result from faulty equipment in desperate need of maintenance and/or upgrading.
Let’s look forward to more accurate forecasts in the ‘medium term’.
