We start the New Year with a report of a cyclone developing in the Indian Ocean called ‘Dumile’. This being the 4th cyclone of this summer season, it is intensifying according to International Weather reports being published.
Fortunately at this stage, it seems to be headed south east indicating that it may just peter out in mid Indian Ocean, but we will keep an eye on it.
Whether this is the cause for the exceptionally dry air being experienced over South Africa at present is not clear, but looking at the map of Africa on the Kobus Botha website, there is a tremendous amount of moisture and rain to the north of us.
This dry weather unfortunately can cause runaway fires in the winter rainfall region and we are keeping an eye on fire reports.
At the time of compiling this report, there is still a fair amount of traffic on our roads and early on Saturday morning there was a heavy mist over van Reenens Pass with Twitter reports coming in from motorists to the N3 Toll Concession Twitter site.
The N3 currently is in excellent condition and my trip to Southbroom end of December was a pleasure as all motorists were abiding by the code of the road and driving conditions were perfect.
The weather in general is still a prominent point of discussion with worldwide reports still a daily news issue being it Cyclones, Typhoons, Hurricanes, heavy snow, too much rain, drought conditions and in general strange wind conditions.
Sasolburg had a freak wind storm last week that caused an unbelievable amount of damage in just a few minutes.
Unfortunately this happened at night so there was no way of establishing if this was a tornado or twister or just a freak wind event. It destroyed many homes and some residents lost everything.
Hamnet will continue to monitor our emergency frequency of 7,110 MHz for the current school holiday season but I think it may be a good idea if we continue to monitor on an ad-hoc basis and give the odd call even if just to establish working or band conditions.
We wish you all a pleasant and fruitful 2013 and sincerely hope it is going to be a good year for all of us.
Reporting for Hamnet, this is Francois Botha – ZS6BUU.
Fortunately at this stage, it seems to be headed south east indicating that it may just peter out in mid Indian Ocean, but we will keep an eye on it.
Whether this is the cause for the exceptionally dry air being experienced over South Africa at present is not clear, but looking at the map of Africa on the Kobus Botha website, there is a tremendous amount of moisture and rain to the north of us.
This dry weather unfortunately can cause runaway fires in the winter rainfall region and we are keeping an eye on fire reports.
At the time of compiling this report, there is still a fair amount of traffic on our roads and early on Saturday morning there was a heavy mist over van Reenens Pass with Twitter reports coming in from motorists to the N3 Toll Concession Twitter site.
The N3 currently is in excellent condition and my trip to Southbroom end of December was a pleasure as all motorists were abiding by the code of the road and driving conditions were perfect.
The weather in general is still a prominent point of discussion with worldwide reports still a daily news issue being it Cyclones, Typhoons, Hurricanes, heavy snow, too much rain, drought conditions and in general strange wind conditions.
Sasolburg had a freak wind storm last week that caused an unbelievable amount of damage in just a few minutes.
Unfortunately this happened at night so there was no way of establishing if this was a tornado or twister or just a freak wind event. It destroyed many homes and some residents lost everything.
Hamnet will continue to monitor our emergency frequency of 7,110 MHz for the current school holiday season but I think it may be a good idea if we continue to monitor on an ad-hoc basis and give the odd call even if just to establish working or band conditions.
We wish you all a pleasant and fruitful 2013 and sincerely hope it is going to be a good year for all of us.
Reporting for Hamnet, this is Francois Botha – ZS6BUU.
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