IT may seem a depressing subject for the first column of a new year, but I feel the weather of the current holiday season warrants such a question – what’s happening? We’ve had a lot of rain, we’ve had a lot of wind, the temperature has been iffy, in fact the weather has been iffy. We’ve become used to odd weather up to and including November, but December? By the last month of the year summer should be well and truly here, but that is not what we have just experienced. December saw lows of at least 15ºC, which meant jerseys on some days and one night even a duvet. Of course, we also had highs of 31ºC, so we did have some summer too.
Rainfall was also unusual. Our average for the month should be 130mm, but we (in our corner of Trafalgar anyway) had 170mm in one 24-hour period – granted, that was the night of that terrific wind and rain storm, we believe the worst since we came down here. In fact, at time of writing we had had 322mm for December alone, bringing our annual total up to 1 637mm, well over 500mm above the norm. On the subject of norms and rainfall, the year before last, 2012, we had a total of 1 907mm, more than 800mm over the average. So, can we really talk about drought?
Talking about that storm, it wreaked havoc up and down the coast. I’ve been told of seawalls being damaged, roads literally washed away, others badly damaged and/or blocked by fallen trees, homes damaged and the beaches, our pride and joy, strewn with rubbish and worse.
That storm also brought down a huge branch from a Natal mahogany on our verge. It came down over the fence, covering about half our back garden, smashing everything in its path. One must be philosophical about such things – if you love trees and want to live with them all around you, then you must also realise that trees shed branches or even fall over, that’s just the way it is. Anyway, our ever helpful neighbourhood Mr Fixit promptly arrived with his chain saw to cut said mahogany off the fence, and informed us that most of the wood and leaf material piled high in the garden was not the mahogany at all, but a creeper that had grown right up into the canopy of the tree, which it had come to completely dominate.
It turned out to be a cross berry, or Grewia occidentalis, an ornamental garden tree which, left unchecked, can turn into a monster overnight. It had, quite literally, unnoticed taken over the Natal mahogany and put so much weight into the canopy that it just took that exceptional wind to bring it all down, lock, stock and barrel. So, herewith a free warning, if you find a creeper growing up your favourite tree, check its pedigree and if necessary get rid of it, it could cause you serious trouble some time in the future.
Right, like all good South Coasters, I’ve discussed the weather. Cheers!
