Climate

Climate and weather

Grade 12 climate is the weather systems that actually hit southern Africa: mid-latitude cyclones, tropical cyclones, and the local climates of valleys and cities.

CAPS

Grade 12 · Geography · Climate

Geography examines physical and human processes, with map skills in both papers.

The papers
Paper 1 is climate and weather, and geomorphology, with geographical skills. Paper 2 is rural and urban settlement, and the economic geography of South Africa, with geographical skills. Each paper is 150 marks.
Map work
Direction, scale, gradient, cross-section and a calculation from the map must show the formula and the substitution. A place you cannot point to on the extract is a guess.
How a marker reads it
A common mix-up is to put Cape winter rain in the same system as a KwaZulu-Natal tropical cyclone.

Paragraph questions want causes and effects in sequence. Naming a term without saying how it changes the landscape or the settlement is only the first mark.

Diagram

Worked theory

Worked theory. A July cold front over Cape Town, and a February cyclone near the Mozambique Channel. The Cape front brings winter rain and a temperature drop after the front passes. The tropical cyclone needs sea water warmer than about 26 degrees and dies over land or cold water, so Gauteng does not get the eye of the storm, but the Lowveld can get the flood. In a valley orchard, the farmer plants above the frost pocket, in the thermal belt. Johannesburg at night is warmer than the Highveld grass around it because tar and buildings hold the day’s heat. Three cases, one idea: where the air moves, and what it does to people.

More worked examples

Three forecasts in one February week
A tropical cyclone north of Richards Bay brings flood rain and destructive wind, then dies as it moves inland. The same week a Highveld valley orchard drops to frost on the valley floor at dawn while the slope 50 m up stays above zero. Johannesburg’s night temperature sits 3 or 4 degrees above the grassland outside the city, because the buildings held the day’s heat. None of these is a Cape winter cold front. That front belongs to July.
January rain on the plateau
In January the interior plateau is in its wet season. The band of rising air and thunderstorms sits over the land, and a Highveld afternoon builds a storm. Cape Town, in the same month, is in its dry season. Winter rain there comes with the fronts in June, not with these January storms. One country, one month, two regimes. A learner who revises “South Africa gets summer rain” has erased the Cape.

In ordinary words

A mid-latitude cyclone is a low with a cold front and a warm front, moving west to east across the Cape in winter, bringing rain. A tropical cyclone is a warm-cored storm from the warm Indian Ocean in summer, with an eye, and destructive wind and flood. Valley climate: at night cold air drains to the valley floor, a frost pocket, while a warmer thermal belt sits on the slope. Cities are warmer than the countryside around them, an urban heat island, strongest over the dense centre.

In South Africa

A Cape July front, a Mozambican cyclone warning, and frost in a valley are the three forecasts.

Part 1 / 4

What it is

Grade 12 climate is the weather systems that actually hit southern Africa: mid-latitude cyclones, tropical cyclones, and the local climates of valleys and cities.

Climate and weather / sa-climate — Diagram

More worked examples

Board walkthroughs on this topic. Open one, copy the working, then try the next.

Example 1 / 20

A mid-latitude cyclone (cold front) approaches Cape Town. Describe the weather.

How we got there

Read this like a teacher at the board. We go slowly, name every number, and say why we take each step.

Explain in another language · 11

1. What is the question asking?

Read the question twice. Circle the unknown. Underline every number and unit. The paper is asking: A mid-latitude cyclone (cold front) approaches Cape Town. Describe the weather.

Before any working — hunt first

Given

Numbers and units already in the sentence: no numbers yet — only a name, a diagram, or a worded unknown. Copy each one into a column. A name without a number is not given.

Missing

After you copy the given, the letter that still has no number is missing. The paper is pointing at: Describe the weather. Circle that word — that is the missing variable.

Find

We are required to find: Describe the weather. Write that as a symbol on the left, with a question mark, before you touch a formula.

Calculate

What we need to calculate: Weather changes. Then substitute the given, one line at a time, to get Describe the weather.

In other words — as if you have never seen this before

If you have never seen this before: Weather changes. We will name a method in words, write the formula with no numbers, then substitute one line at a time.

2. What do we already know?

Cold front.

3. Which method — and why this one?

Weather changes.

4. Step-by-step working

01 / 08
Step A — Read the question twice
Slow down. Circle the word that names the unknown. Underline every number and its unit. Do not grab a formula yet — first decide what the paper is actually asking.
Why this step: If you can say the method in a sentence, you will pick the right formula. First-timers skip this and grab the first equation they remember.
02 / 08
Step A2 — Hunt: Given, Missing, Find, Calculate
Given: Numbers and units already in the sentence: no numbers yet — only a name, a diagram, or a worded unknown. Copy each one into a column. A name without a number is not given. Missing: After you copy the given, the letter that still has no number is missing. The paper is pointing at: Describe the weather. Circle that word — that is the missing variable. Find: We are required to find: Describe the weather. Write that as a symbol on the left, with a question mark, before you touch a formula. Calculate: What we need to calculate: Weather changes. Then substitute the given, one line at a time, to get Describe the weather.
Why this step: Do not name the letters yet. First hunt: what already has a number (Given), what has no number (Missing), the word the paper wants (Find), and which formula still contains the missing letter (Calculate).
03 / 08
Step B — Write the given in a column
Cold front.
Why this step: A column with units stops you mixing cm with m, or minutes with seconds. Markers can also see you started correctly.
04 / 08
Step C — Name the method in words
Weather changes.
Why this step: If you can say the method in a sentence, you will pick the right formula. First-timers skip this and grab the first equation they remember.
05 / 08
Explain
Before: warm, NW winds, falling pressure. During: cumulonimbus, heavy rain, temperature drops. After: cold, SW winds, clearing skies.
Why this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.
06 / 08
Step G — Sense-check the size
Ask: is this the kind of number a Grade 10–12 paper would want? A speed of 3 000 ms for a learner walking, or a probability bigger than 1, means a unit or algebra slip. Estimate first: round the numbers and do the sum in your head.
Why this step: Markers write ‘unrealistic’ in the margin when the method is right but the size is wild. A 10-second head check often finds a missing 10² or a unit that never changed.
07 / 08
Step F — Box the answer with its unit
Rain, cooling and wind shift.
Why this step: A number without a unit is half a mark on a Physics paper, and a marker can miss a Maths answer that is buried in working.
08 / 08
Step H — What the marker is looking for
On an NSC memo you usually earn: (1) a method mark for naming the right formula or idea in words, (2) an accuracy mark for substituting the given numbers with units, (3) an accuracy mark for the boxed answer with its unit. Write those three lines even if you are unsure of the arithmetic — blank pages score zero.
Why this step: First-timers chase the final number and leave the method blank. The memo still pays out for the idea and the substitution even when the last line is wrong.

5. The answer

Rain, cooling and wind shift.

Copy onto your answer sheet — in this order

Answer: Rain, cooling and wind shift.

6. Check it like a marker

Winter rainfall.

7. A trap first-timers fall into

First-timers often grab the first formula they remember, mix units (cm with m, minutes with seconds), or drop a minus sign. Write the formula in words first: “this equals that, because…”

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Geomorphology

Geography

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