A 50-year-old tree tumbled across a road in Newlands, Cape Town, on Friday as gale-force winds, driving rain and bitter cold hit the city in the early hours of the morning.
The Elsieskraal River flowing through Pinelands had apparently burst its banks, but there was no major flooding reported so far, said senior traffic officer Lyndon Herbert.
Traffic across Cape Town had slowed, and one accident had been reported by 7.30am, on Vanguard Drive opposite the old Philippi police station, he said.
Herbert said the deluge began shortly after 1am.
In a national warning issued at 6am on Friday, the South African Weather Service predicted bitterly cold, wet and windy conditions over the interior of the Western Cape and the western and south-western interior of the Northern Cape, with snowfalls on the high ground.
The bitterly cold conditions were expected to later spread to the high ground of the Eastern Cape.
”Gale-force westerly winds, together with very rough sea conditions, reaching nine metres in the west later, are expected between Table Bay and Plettenberg Bay, spreading to the Wild Coast by the evening.
”The wind is expected to reach strong gale-force off the coasts of the southern and eastern cape. Very rough seas, exceeding five metres, are expected to spread up the west coast later. Severe thunderstorms are expected over Swaziland,” the Weather Service cautioned.
In stark contrast, conditions would be hot, dry and windy — conducive to runaway fires — over the eastern part of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, the northern Free State, the eastern part of the North West, Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
The icy weather in the Cape was expected to persist on high ground on Saturday when it would reach the Drakensberg, and southern and south-eastern Free State.
The sea would be very rough between Luderitz and the Wild Coast, moderating in the west. Gale-force westerly to south-westerly winds expected along the Eastern Cape coast would moderate later. – Sapa