The 1926 drought: 6,3 cm of rain in the year

1926 · regional · Beaufort West

A disastrous drought across South Africa, with Beaufort West among the worst hit along with Vanrhynsdorp and Namaqualand. SIX POINT THREE CENTIMETRES of rain fell in the whole year, against an average of 20,32 cm. Boreholes at the low end of town weakened; over the next two years fruit trees and quince and pomegranate hedges parched. The council put unemployed men on relief work, and De Kerkbode reported people "practically starving". These are BEAUFORT WEST's records, about 91 km from the centre of the ground this project maps, and the article makes no statement about Klaarstroom or the Koup farms. What makes them worth having is that they are the same rainfall regime and the nearest place where somebody wrote the weather down year by year. Read as regional context, not as a record of what fell on these farms. [SRC-262]

Sources

• Wessel Visser, "Between drought and deluge: A history of water provision to Beaufort West, ca. 1858-1955", pp. 1-21 pp. 1-21; supplied as the PDF 31-61-1-SM.pdf

Told in

• evidence The van Rensburgs of the dry north