Icy weather ahead
2003-10-15 21:52
Pretoria - Although much-needed rain is expected over a large part of the country this weekend, people should also brace themselves for one of the coldest spring weekends in a long time.
An unusual cold front is expected to slash warm spring temperatures by half and plunge most of the country back into winter.
Ebert Scholtz of the South African Weather Service in Pretoria said the cold front would move in over the Cape on Thursday and reach the interior by Friday.
Maximum temperatures of less than 15° are expected compared to the current warm daytime temperatures of nearly 30°.
On the bright side, Scholtz said there was a 60 to 80% chance for rain from Saturday to Monday. Areas expected to benefit were Limpopo, the North West, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State, most of the Northern Cape and the Eastern Cape. In some of these parts, rainfall of up to 30mm is expected.
The weather service issued a cold warning for stock farmers in the Eastern Cape, the Karoo, KwaZulu-Natal, eastern Free State and Mpumalanga highveld for Friday and Saturday.
Scholtz said there was a possibility for snow over the southern mountains of the Western Cape on Thursday, and the high-lying areas of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal on Friday.
Agro-meteorologist Johan van den Berg, warned that the forecast rainfall might not be enough to save the country from drought. "What we really needed was a season of above-average rainfall and time to recover."
He said it was too early for predictions of a large-scale drought. It was still early in the rainy season and it was normal for the country to be dry at this time of year.