Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Waterfalls off the berg, as well as rainfall in catchment areas, could help break the drought
set over the next week, we can only hope the momentum continues.
The ground is wet, and we’re now into that mid-winter spell with snow melt run-off, old rain run-off and new rain run-off slowly filling up our water supply, inch by inch.
Walking on the mountain above the southern suburbs immediately after the last rain had ended this week, I was struck by the velocity and volume of the water. It was incredible. The roar of waterfalls was deafening, and cascading water was rushing right over the road in places.
In my mind’s eye, I saw 10 000 litre JoJo tanks filling up every few seconds and rolling into the suburbs. I sat watching one of the streams, and made a wistful calculation based on a very unscientific observation. I figured the flow was 10 000 litres every five seconds.
That’s 173 million litres a day. Say that was the net outflow over three days, with dwindling return over the next few days.
Anyway, by my calculation, I called it a total of four days, which is 691 million litres. Now, lets say there are 20 such kloofs just around Table Mountain where the water rushes.
That is 13 824 million litres –and I think that is conservative – that poured off the mountain.
To put that in perspective, that’s 20 days of water for Cape Town. I don’t know if it’s worth trying to harvest this water, but it’s worth thinking about.
At worst, a large portion goes out to sea. At best, the aquifer is somewhat replenished. Twelve surfers from the biggest country in South America advanced to the last 64 of the Volkswagen SA Open of Surfing presented by Hurley in small wind-blown waves at New Pier. With the 14 Brazilians seeded directly to the Round of 64, they have 26 surf- ers in Round 4 of the event. Seems like my hashtag – which I had flippantly added to a storm forecast video I posted on YouTube five days before the big storm – trended for a while in Cape Town as the storm approached. The term is a South African appropriation, in case you don’t know what Dik means, to the cult surfing movie Big Wednesday. A battle between Australian Matt Wilkinson and rookie compatriot Connor O’Leary in clean 4-5’ surf at Cloudbreak saw Wilko eventually take the Outerknown Fiji Pro, which elevates him to #1 in the rankings, leapfrogging Hawaiian John John Florence and Jordy Smith, who slips to third. The WSL Speciality Longboard event at the Tiger’s Milk Winter Classic last week went with the form book as former ISA World Champions Matthew Moir and Simone Robb won. Moir and Robb showed their class in tiny Muizenberg surf on Sunday, a far cry from the giant surf a few days before. A big winter swell hits today, with 8- 10ft surf, and solid 12ft sets on deepwater reefs. A short cold front brings a messy SW breeze, stiff early, but easing. Rain showers began between 4am and 6am this morning. Muizenberg looks sideshore 3’ and grey. By tomorrow, it’s clearing and clean SE breezes brush back a solid 6-8’ groundswell. Muizenberg looks bumpy in a light onshore and 2-3’ surf.