The cold front made landfall
yesterday, moving further over the interior of Western and Eastern Cape
overnight and introducing cloudy and cold conditions to these provinces.
Rainfall is already occurring over the southern parts of the country, with
cold, rainy conditions expected to persist over the weekend, as these
conditions migrate further northward and eastwards over southern Africa.
Whilst
snowfalls are expected over the mountainous regions of all three of the Cape
provinces, the falls of snow are mostly expected to be relatively light and of
a patchy, non-disruptive nature.
The most important and
significant aspect regarding the weather for this weekend, is that numeric
weather prediction models suggest that significantly heavy rainfall, of the
order of 100mm to 200 mm is likely to occur over the eastern parts of Eastern
Cape on Saturday, 13 May, specifically between East London and Port St Johns,
including the adjacent interior regions.
Moreover, further rainfall is expected
to persist over this region on Sunday, 14 May when significant
rainfall spreads over parts of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
Persistent rainfall of this
magnitude, enhanced by sustained cool, moist onshore flow against the coastal
topography, is highly likely to lead to localised urban and river flooding as
well as damage to infrastructure.
Given the
expectation of an extended spell of cold, wet weather as well as the
possibility of snowfalls over mountainous parts of Western, Northern and
Eastern Cape, farmers of small stock are advised to move animals to dry
shelters at lower elevations.
Daytime
temperatures for the weekend are expected to be of the order of 12°C to 16°C over
the interior of the Cape provinces on Friday, with cold, showery conditions
spreading into the Free State, North West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KZN during
the weekend.
