Monday, July 2, 2012

The Cape winter

Early morning walk along Fish Hoek in a gentle Cape Town winter drizzle.

According to Wikipedia, Cape Town enjoys an ocean Mediterranean climate (Koppen Csa), with mild, moderately wet winters and dry, warm summers. Winter, which lasts from the beginning of June to the end of August, may see large cold fronts entering for limited periods from the Atlantic Ocean with significant precipitation and strong north-westerly winds. Winter months in the city average a maximum of 18.0 °C (64 °F)and minimum of 8.5 °C (47 °F). Total annual rainfall in the city averages 515 millimetres (20.3 in). Summer, which lasts from early December to March, is warm and dry with an average maximum of 26.0 °C (79 °F) and minimum of 16.0 °C (61 °F). The region can get uncomfortably hot when the Berg Wind, meaning "mountain wind", blows from the Karoo interior for a couple of weeks in February or early March. Late spring and early summer may sometimes feature a strong wind from the south-east, known locally as the Cape Doctor, so called because it blows air pollution away. This wind is caused by a high-pressure system which sits in the South Atlantic to the west of Cape Town, known as the South-Atlantic High. Cape Town's average amount of sunshine per year (3,100 hours) compares favourably with that of Los Angeles (3,300 hours)and Tel Aviv (3,300 hours), and exceeds that of Athens and Madrid (2,900 hours).

1 comment:

  1. We've had a very wet winter so far which has its good and bad sides to it. Otherwise the dayshaven't been very bad at all. Nice winter weather.

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