Just reading a friend's blog entry about the onset of spring (in the northern hemisphere) promted me to write an equivalent post about a sudden change in the weather in Cape Town.
After months of hot sunshine, blue skies and hardly a cloud to be seen, with the resultant absence of rain, Sunday 20th March, which was the Equinox, or the day, which occurs twice a year when the whole Earth has 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness, and when the sun highest over the Equator, seems to have acted like a switch pushing this part of the world into a new season.
On Monday, which was a public holiday in South Africa (Human Rights' Day), I went out for my usual jog around 7am, it was cloudy and I felt a few spots of rain. It was still hot and humid throughout the day and the low cumulus cloud from earlier had transformed into beautiful high cirrus whisps later in the day.
Then around 4.30am on Tuesday our bedroom was lit up by a flash of lightning, followed about 10 seconds later by a peel of thunder. This was repeated over and over during the next hour and when we got up, the ground was damp from rain. The sky was overcast all day, prompting me to not to but my washing outside, when I went out and I was so glad I had heeded the warning, because around 4.30pm we had another sudden downpour. Then the skies cleared again, but the temperature has dramatically fallen.
Last night we didn't put the fan on, for the first time in months and I needed a blanket on top of our sheet, half way through the night. Today, Wednesday, the sky is again overcast and it is definitely cool and very windy.
Looks like summer is over!
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