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.

.

Thankful for the rain - and there's more to come

Image from "Die Beeld" Newspaper

After suffering a drought most of last summer, this January has brought (almost) more rain than we can handle. While the farmers and us gardeners are ecstatic about the rain, some suburban areas in Krugersdorp (Gauteng, South Africa) and other areas have been hard hit with lots of destruction. At the Walter Sisulu Botanical gardens in Roodepoort the normally placid waterfall turned into a raging torrent, washing away bridges and sending the newly fledged young Black Eagle seeking the safety of his nest high up on the cliffs. You can see the video of the waterfall HERE.  

I think it is a symptom of all the development in the catchment area. With all the new housing estates going up in the area, more hard surfaces means less water penetration into the soil and larger, more spectacular flash floods. According to the SA Weather Service, this storm is in a band coming from the north, through Botswana and North West. Water flowing through water courses caused the Monument Dam at Key West Shopping Mall to overflow, spilling millions of litres into a nearby school, which had to be closed, while the water rushed through various parts of the town.

Watch this short video.


For the past three weeks, we've been having afternoon thunderstorms with 30mm on most days, but the whopper was on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, when my rain gauge over-flowed, meaning more than 100mm in just over 18 hours. I didn't write it down, but my estimate is 450mm for the month. My chickens sought the safety of the coop, not venturing out until it had all subsided after lunch-time.

I've always wanted to live either at the beach or the banks of a river, but Mother Nature is so unpredictable these days, I think for the moment I will settle for the high, flat plains of Gauteng.


.