Weather and stuff

An online friend made the comment that Durban was oh so cold now. It is not even winter yet, and in my experience, even then is not cold in there. I think it is mostly because of the hot ocean current that passes by. I made the point that Pretoria is not as hot as Durban, and even that is not particularly cold in winter. This, however is not the point of this post, but all this lead me to think of how Koreans think that I am unable to handle cold because Africa is such a hot place.

Well, true, Africa is hot, but I don’t live in Africa. I live in (the Republic of) South Africa. Africa is a big place, you know? Koreans live in Korea, not Asia. Asia is kind of big as well. India and Korea do not exactly have the same weather, does it? For heaven’s sake, Busan and Seoul does not even have the same weather and we are talking less than 350km apart.

I went a digging and found a weather chart of monthly temperatures:

	Pretoria		Seoul
Summer	16°C - 28°C 17°C - 29°C 17°C - 29°C		18°C - 27°C 22°C - 29°C 23°C - 30°C
Autumn	16°C - 28°C 13°C - 23°C 8°C - 22°C		16°C - 26°C 9°C – 20°C 3°C - 11°
Winter	4°C - 21°C 3°C - 20°C 8°C - 23°C		-3°C – 4°C -5°C – 1°C -4°C - 4°C
Spring	10°C - 26°C 14°C - 28°C 15°C - 28°C		C0°C - 10°C 8°C - 18°C 12°C - 22°C

(I would like to dispute the winter highs. When I was in school that was more like 15°C, however, that might have changed.)


You have to keep in mind that my home town of Pretoria is not humid like Korea, so 30°C there is much easier to handle than 30 here in Korea. 30°C there and it is great for a Braai (BBQ) outside. Here in Korea you would be sweating like a pig within 5 minutes. Point is, I am no more used to heat than any Korean is. The cold can get to us Saffers, but that is because most of our country does not reach those low temperatures. Note that I said “most”. Some places do get seriously cold (and in summer seriously hot). Also, many of us prefer colder days, like I do. 5°C in the morning up to 20°C and I am as happy as a, and again with the pig, but this time in Palestine. 

“Why is (the Republic of) South Africa so much cooler than the rest of Africa?” you might as. Well, dear reader, there is this things, actually two of them, called the Tropic Lines. Countries between these lines tend to be very hot. Them there countries are where coffee is grown precisely because it is nice and hot. Most of South Africa fall underneath the Southern Tropic Line, the Tropic of Capricorn. This makes for a nice temperate, almost European like country, perfect for growing just about anything and having fun outside like it is no body’s business.

As a p.s. note thing, did you know there are places in Australia where is snows, quite a lot? Yea! It snows in Australia. It is so easy to forget that that country is actually a whole continent, with quite diverse climates. I know I forget just that all the time.