Weather Service hedges its bets when forecasting 2018 Cape winter rainfall
The forecasting system indicates above-normal rainfall during early winter, according to the South African Weather Service.The update will be welcome news for the Western Cape, which in the grip of its worst drought in years.The province is a large producer of winter cereals including wheat‚ which is used an input in the production of bread and breakfast cereals. SA produced 1.524-million tonnes of wheat in 2017, with the Western Cape accounting for the majority of the tonnage produced, at 586,800.Forecaster Cobus Olivier said in an e-mailed statement that a number of rainfall days were expected to be higher than normal for the winter rainfall areas."It should be noted, however, that there is not sufficient confidence in the forecasting system for these forecasts, thus there is very high uncertainty in the rainfall intensity for the winter rainfall areas," Olivier noted.The weather service said early forecasts suggest that that El Niño‚ which is associated with drier summer-rainfall...
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