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Monday, 25 January 2016

Mother Nature's blessings and her fury

After months of drought, the Sabie River in full flood in the Kruger National Park, South Africa

After some weeks of suffering a terrible heat wave leading to loss of life, coupled with serious drought in parts of our country (South Africa), Mother Nature blessed us with lots of rain but also some of her worst-ever fury, dumping days of rain and hail bigger than golf balls, causing extensive flooding and damage to properties in Krugersdorp in the second week of January.

KeyWest Shopping Mall roof collapses under the weight of the hail

The roof of our local shopping mall in Krugersdorp, KeyWest, collapsed from the weight of the hail, causing makor damage to most of the shops in the mall, with flooding and ceilings falling in, resulting in the closure of the mall until repairs could be done.

Damage to The Hub retail shop


It's been raining almost every day ever since and this morning I woke up to dark skies and with the rising sun beautifully highlighting the foliage on the trees with a light drizzle to boot. My garden is smiling in leaps and bounds!

Yesterday's rain


Solly's chooks were by no means intimidated by the black skies or the rain and kept on having their early 6am breakfast (this drive-way is in dire need of renovation! It's on my list ...!)

Extreme weather is occurring all over the globe at the moment, and it's easy to consider an apocalypse could be on the horizon. While we hope this is far from true, it's impossible to ignore the droughts, fires, storms and heat waves we've experienced lately, with Pretoria (Gauteng, South Africa), experiencing temperatures in the 40℃'s, the hottest it's ever been since 1865. And here at home, our temps hit 39℃, something I've never experienced in my 40 years of living in Tarlton.

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2 comments:

  1. What a tragedy, Maree! I hope you are safe and well. Unfortunately, I believe this extreme weather is going to become the norm [but I keep hoping we smarten up, and do things to rectify the global warming].
    Kathryn

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    1. All is well where I live Kathryn, but we did have 40mm of rain in that hour. But our Townhouse in Krugersdorp also suffered damage from the hail cracking the roof tiles and water getting into the ceilings, but we got of lightly compared to the other units in the complex. And yes, it does seem that extreme weather is becoming the norm...

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