Endless Summer

Free State under fire: Climate change is clearly happening right here, every day

What we are seeing is daily temperatures soaring to the mid-30’s degrees Celcius, then dropping to the mid-20’s overnight. Over a period of time the soil has become so parched because virtually no rain has fallen. In fact, rainfall for this time of the year is less than 50% of the norm, but the heat is the more worrying aberration.

30 to 40% of South Africa’s 2.7 million hectares (under maize cultivation) could be lost this year due to the extreme heat which continues to persist day in and day out. The central parts, particularly the Free State,where I live, and the North West Province are succumbing to this ’Endless Summer’ scenario.

In a recent article I made the following statement:
The average rainfall for my city (Bloemfontein) in January is 83 millimetres for the month. There are a few days left on the calendar, but so far we’re limping through a dry month with a mere 16.3 millimetres.
As it turned out, no more rain fell in January, and other centres in the region had statistics that were even more off kilter from the norm than here in Bloemfontein.
For February the average is predicted (based on a 30 year mean) to reach 111mm. So far (and it’s more than 33% of the month gone already), we’re still less than 5mm.

Despite these conditions, the South African Weather Bureau are not referring to the conditions as a Heat Wave.
Interestingly, on the radio commentators were stating what everyone was thinking: that we simply cannot wait for summer to end. We simply want some relief from the constant heat. And the locals are unanimous that the conditions - the constant extreme heat - is highly irregular.

Climate models from the University of Pretoria depict long term(30 year) conditions in South Africa’s central heartland becoming 10-20% wetter, but that temperatures are also likely to rise 3-5 degrees Celcius (over the next 50 years).

At the moment it appears that the heat is winning. We see front loaded with clouds, but the hot dry air seems to boil them into nothing.

While 2006 was the warmest year on record, from where we are, it’s likely to be eclipsed by the Endless Summer conditions we’re experiencing here.

Meanwhile, the hot, dry conditions of this 2007 summer season means there is nowhere near enough winter grazing to tide our cattle herds through the long dry winter season. Summer is our rainy season, and here in central South Africa we are supposed to have a lot more rain in summer, and negligible drops in winter. Recently, we’ve been getting none of the vital summer rains we need, and summer heat worse than we’ve ever seen.