[imagesource:eumetsat/africanweather.co.za]

Yeah, we’re talking about the weather and it is actually fascinating.

As humans, we like to dramatise the past with exclamations of how hot or cold the last year was. “That was definitely the hottest year,” or “We hardly got any rain this year compared to last,” or “2022 must have been the most intense year to date”.

That’s where the SA Weather Service’s Annual State of the Climate 2022 report comes in handy to set the record straight.

Perhaps you also felt that 2022 was incredibly balmy, AKA hot, humid, windy, confusing…emotionally hectic…In which case, you’re right because La Niña certainly brought the drama.

It turns out, 2022 is South Africa’s fourth-hottest year on record despite above-normal levels of rainfall.

The South African Weather Service collected data from 26 climate stations across the country, noted News24:

The annual average temperature was about 0.4ºC above the average for the reference period between 1991 and 2020, which made 2022 the “fourth hottest year on record since 1951,” the report read.

The country generally experienced a warm year, amid higher levels of rainfall brought on by La Niña. La Niña is a weather event in the Pacific Ocean which impacts rainfall, and in southern Africa, it is associated with higher rainfall.

La Niña was kind enough to satiate some areas experiencing drought as a result of “good rains” in the early part of 2022. But in other parts, it caused a little more trouble:

“In February, rainfall in the densely populated Gauteng was often characterised by flash-flood events, displacing some communities and causing at least six casualties and extensive damage to infrastructure,” the SA Weather Service report read.

We cannot forget the extreme rainfall in April that escalated into flooding in Durban, displacing 40 000 people and killing 400.

“This event … is considered as one of the major damaging weather events of 2022,” the SA Weather Service report read.

Overall, the highest daily temperature recorded in 2022 was in Upington, at 41.7ºC, on 22 December. The annual average temperature for 2022 was 30.2ºC.

The lowest daily temperature recorded in 2022 was -6.4ºC at the Glen College weather station in Bloemfontein. The average temperature for the year was 8.1ºC.

As for the months to come? Well, well, well…

According to the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society at Columbia University, La Niña is winding down and being replaced with its frenemy El Niño:

 El Niño is associated with increased temperatures and low rainfall, explained independent climatologist Dave Ogier. In South Africa, the day-zero drought in Cape Town a few years back resulted due to an intense El Niño, Ogier pointed out.

While El Niño is still low or neutral for April to June, at around 21%, the chance of the weather system coming to cause chaos increases to 49% for the months of May to July and even more so from June to August – between 60% and 67%.

Ogier reckons it’s likely going to be a drier year overall and if El Niño gets really bad, we may have to prepare quite seriously for another day zero.

Folks with pools and gardens, you hear that?

[source:news24]