Six dry years: a mean of 13,1 cm

1942 · regional · Beaufort West

The average rainfall across these six years was 13,1 cm, about two thirds of normal. By 1943 the town's supply was in a "critical condition"; in January 1946 water was cut on certain days and hours because the boreholes were giving in. 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