Cape Town weather: Thunder, substantial rainfall forecast for Tuesday

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? But the Cape Town weather forecast is finally looking wet and miserable again, if only for a few hours this week.

In fact, the moody atmosphere won’t just bring rain with it, but a few claps of thunder too. As Accuweather and Ventusky forecast, a cold front is set to sweep across the south-west early on Tuesday morning, and it’s ready to persist until just after midday.

Capetonians aren’t on course for a massive amount of rain, but it looks as if this upcoming rainfall could be the most significant since September. Here’s how things are shaping up:

Cape Town weather for Tuesday 20 November

From around 8:00 on Tuesday morning, the storm will make its presence felt at the extreme southerly points of the Western Cape. Cape Point and L’Agulhas will be the first to encounter the rain, and thunderstorms are forecast all along the coast.

For the next few hours, the cold front will push in a north-easterly direction and make its way towards inland, central regions of the province. City dwellers will experience a ripple of thunder between 10:00 – 12:00, whereas the South Coast continues to enjoy a majority of the rain.

By about 13:00, most of the rain will have disappeared. The Garden Route gets a much-needed soaking, with around 20 – 30mm forecast over the entirety of Tuesday. That 24-hour period will see the Mother City record 5mm of rain in total – a modest, but most-welcome downpour.

Will the rain reach the dams?

So the rain is actually going where it’s needed, which is a fantastic triumph for the Cape Town municipality and its fight against drought. The dams have recorded five consecutive weeks of marginal losses, dropping under the three-quarters-full mark recently.

But this latest forecast is good news. Not only are both Steenbras dams (near Grabouw) and Voelvlei (south of Tulbagh) looking at more than 5mm each, but the city’s biggest dam is on course for the highest amount of precipitation. Villiersdorp-based Theewaterskloof is predicted to receive at least 7mm on Tuesday.