A cold and wet South Africa by Sean Batty
South Africa continues to be battered by cold and wet weather, with the Eastern Cape being the worst hit area. The province was hit by snow and flooding yesterday.
Snow blanketed the length of the Drakensberg Mountains, which run from south Swaziland, through Lesotho and on to the north of Port Elizabeth. The slopes of the Eastern Cape around South Africa's Tiffindell Ski Resort saw around 10cm - 15cm
(4-6 inches) of snow over the past few days.
This is the heaviest snow that has fallen this early in the season for at least 7 years. The resort is also experiencing its lowest April/May temperatures for a decade.
Temperatures were slightly nearer normal on Wednesday along the coastal parts with temperatures into the low 20s Celsius in Port Elizabeth and Durban. Instead of heavy snow the coasts experienced some very heavy falls of rain.
The town of East London had 57mm (over 2 inches) of rain fall yesterday afternoon. This is more than the town experiences usually in the whole month of May, which is 52mm.
Further south along the coast, the streets of Port Elizabeth were flooded with water. The storms delivered an incredible 120mm (4.8 inches) or rain during Wednesday morning, which has broken the record for the most rain to fall in a 24 hour period. The previous record 24 hour rainfall amount was 76mm. The average rainfall here for the month of May is around 59mm.
A UK Met Office forecaster has said that the weather should begin to pick up through the next few days. Temperatures are expected to return to nearer normal, perhaps warmer next week and it should also turn drier. An area of low pressure could bring some showers on Friday into Saturday, but they shouldn’t bring a recurrence of yesterday’s flooding.
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