A massive cold front sweeping across South Africa has brought freezing conditions to much of the country, with snow reported as far north as Bloemfontein in the Free State and parts of Gauteng, as well as reports of serious flooding in the southern Cape and a tornado in Dullstroom in Mpumalanga.
It snowed in Gauteng on Wednesday for the first time in at least eight years, said the South African Weather Service. ”Apparently at Carletonville and Westonaria there is light snow,” said assistant manager for forecasting Kevin Rae.
He said the snow had been reported about 9am on Wednesday. The very extreme southern parts of Gauteng could have some light snow on Wednesday morning, and the rest of Gauteng could expect showers.
”Snow over Gauteng seems to occur once every eight to 10 years,” said Rae, adding that it is ”a little uncommon”. There were also reports of snow in Bloemfontein, at the airport and in the city. Rae said this was not surprising as it had been forecast.
Six people, including a nine-year-old child, were injured in the tornado that swept through Dullstroom on Tuesday night. The tornado touched down at 7pm, said Mpumalanga police spokesperson Captain Klaas Maloka. The roofs of 10 houses in the neighbouring Sakhelwe township were ”torn apart, upside down all over the street” in the heavy winds and rain.
Four injured women and two men, all in a serious condition, were admitted to Belfast hospital. Maloka said the town’s electricity and phones lines were down for two hours. At this stage, damage is estimated at R100 000.
The tornado hit just as flooding in the southern Cape started subsiding after torrential rain late on Tuesday afternoon. In one instance, a man apparently used an axe to hack down the door of a house to free two hysterical young children and their mother in Herolds Bay. It is believed the three were not in any immediate danger.
Houses in Herolds Bay were reportedly a metre deep in water at times. Other unconfirmed reports were of a woman swept away by the Groot Brakrivier, and of a café washed away at Glentana, between Herolds Bay and the Groot Brakrivier.
Police divers were sent out in the frigid conditions to search for a Volkswagen Jetta and its four occupants feared washed away in Cornville, also in the southern Cape.
Bridge collapse
Rescuers in George are searching for a father and two sons who were swept away by flood waters when a bridge collapsed on Tuesday evening, disaster-management services said. ”The man was driving over a bridge with his two sons at 6pm on Tuesday when the bridge collapsed, sweeping their light blue VW Golf down the stream,” spokesperson Gerhard Otto said on Wednesday.
He said rescuers recovered the car during an overnight search in the river, with no sight of the father or either of his sons. ”The car was recovered about 100m from where the bridge collapsed … Water levels have gone down a bit.”
Otto said the Eden district municipality disaster-management services and the Wilderness search and rescue teams were still searching, but he could not be drawn on whether there was still hope of recovering the missing people alive.
Also in Wilderness, two small farm dams were thought to have burst their banks.
Police spokesperson Captain Malcolm Pojie said 36 households were evacuated from the Syferfontein informal settlement at Pacaltsdorp to the safety of the local community centre. The surrounding area was also flooded. The district council’s emergency team and the police were trying to establish exactly which areas were affected.
The National Sea Rescue Institute in Wilderness had deployed all its volunteers to help rescue workers, said spokesperson Craig Lambinon.
Pojie said the Outeniqua Mountain Pass had been temporarily closed, as had Kaaimans Pass, between Wilderness and George, because of fallen trees. Also closed were the Sousveld road, 5km outside George, and Pienaar’s Street, in Cornville.
Cold front
On Wednesday morning, the South African Weather Service said very cold conditions were expected over the Gauteng and Mpumalanga highveld, the North West, Free State, Northern Cape, areas of the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape interior as well as the western interior of KwaZulu-Natal.
Snowfalls were expected over the eastern high grounds of the Western Cape, Lesotho and the southern Drakensberg as well as the Eastern Cape high ground where it would be heavy in places.
Michael Nethavhani, of the Free State weather office, said there were light snowfalls over central, southern and the eastern parts of the Free State. Snow was falling in Bloemfontein, Bethlehem in the east and on the border between the Free State and the Eastern Cape.
He said temperatures were between zero and one degree Celsius. ”It cannot be ruled out that snowfalls will occur tomorrow [Thursday].”
Gale-force to strong gale-force south-westerly winds were expected between Plettenberg Bay and East London, with very rough seas with wave heights of more than 5m between Plettenberg Bay and East London.
The expected maximum temperature for Johannesburg on Wednesday was nine degrees Celsius. On Thursday, it will be marginally warmer with an expected temperature of about 14 degrees Celsius.
The cold weather will start clearing on Friday. Although this is a very strong cold front, it is not uncommon for this time of year, the weather service said.