The South African Weather Service has forecast more cold fronts for the country this winter. South Africans are currently experiencing extremely cold weather conditions.
In most parts of the country, there is a repeat of the weather patterns that brought snow to Gauteng on Monday last week.
Temperatures in Gauteng started dropping yesterday and are expected to remain low through the weekend.
Forecasters say the cold snap will bring heavy rain, strong winds, and destructive snowfall.
SA Weather Report | 22 July 2023
Several weather alerts have been issued by the South African Weather Service. They include strong damaging winds in the Northern Cape and North West. Disruptive snowfalls in the Eastern Cape and rainy conditions and poor visibility in the Eastern half of the country are expected.
Meteorologist Joel Guy Chabata says the cold snap will last a few more days.
“Temperatures will not be warming up that much across South Africa for the next week. Another cold front is set to cool things down across the Cape provinces this weekend then the cooling could spread into the eastern parts of the country early next week. So, we are looking at temperatures staying in the lower to mid-teens for much of the country. But there could be warmer temperatures especially for the NW and Limpopo province over the weekend and into parts of next week. Winter is still, so we will still see a couple of more cold fronts.”
He explains the origins of the unusual cold snap over the past week.
“What is bringing us this cold and wet weather today and the snow we saw last Monday is a high-pressure system at the surface of the earth and what we call a cut-of-flow pressure system in the middle levels of the atmosphere. What these systems are doing is the high-pressure driving cold and moist polar air into the country while the cut-off flow is also steering cold air above us, and this is a similar situation to what we had last Monday.”
Gauteng Today ‘s Weather overview: 22.7.2023 pic.twitter.com/AW4EKb5TXA
— SA Weather Service (@SAWeatherServic) July 22, 2023
