This day, two years from now

On 11 June 2010, exactly two years from today, Cape Town will be a host city of one of the world's most exciting world sporting events, the FIFA World Cup. Local excitement is mounting and whenever the topic comes up these days people excitedly focus on how they can't believe that it's only two years away. It seems like only yesterday that we won the bid to host the event.

We've had a lot of rain in the past two days. I've had the privilege of working with a couple of consultants from Johannesburg this week who suffered terribly under the cold and wet Cape Town weather. Johannesburg (in the north) is a summer rainfall area, while Cape Town is a winter rainfall area. Our cold temperatures, in conjunction with rain and blustery wind, tend to catch visitors off guard.

So, if you're planning on visiting our lovely city for the World Cup in 2010, do remember to pack summer clothes (for those odd warm days) as well as significant quantities of warm and wet-weather clothes.

Note: The City Council has already started with negotiations with respect to the weather over this time period in 2010. Emerging from a three-day weather summit with the ARC (African Rainfall Council) earlier today, representatives seemed upbeat about the possibility of warm and dry weather over the World Cup month. It seems however that part of the agreement involves a 40-day period in which Cape Town would have to catch up on rainfall delayed over the the World Cup month.