Scientists say the heavy rains that have been hammering the Western Cape in recent weeks are 'at least as rare as one-in-20 to one-in-100 years'.
If you live in the Western Cape and think this year has been especially wet, you'd be right. It's the highest rainfall the province has had since 1976 - that's 47 years.
"If we aggregate the rainfall we've had so far... if we say the total rainfall by the 21st of June - this year is the highest we've had since 1976. So that is [the most rainfall in a year up until 21 June in] 47 years," says Dr Peter Johnston, a Research Officer at the University of Cape Town's Climate System Analysis Group (CSAG).
And Dr Piotr Wolski, chief research officer for hydroclimatology at CSAG, told Daily Maverick that "if we look at total rainfall between January and now... at some locations, this year's values are the highest on the recent record (we are looking at 20-40 years of data here)".
The scientists were in discussion with Daily Maverick in the days following successive cold fronts and exceptionally rainy weather that battered parts of the Western Cape over the course of the month.
Daily Maverick has previously reported that heavy rainfall in the Western Cape between 14 and 19 June claimed the lives of two people and left...
