Johannesburg - A series of cold fronts with strong winds that may result in damage to houses are expected in parts of South Africa next week.
The SA Weather Service (SAWS) has warned of strong winds, high waves, heavy rainfall, light snow and a significant drop in temperatures.
The cold front is expected to start in the western parts and move east into the rest of the country beginning in the Western Cape where they may experience the first cold front on Sunday evening.
This is expected to be ushered in by strong north-westerly winds between 50-60 km/h, gusting up to 70-80 km/h, moving over the southern parts of the Northern Cape and interior of the Western and Eastern Cape from Sunday.
“In addition, westerly to south-westerly waves, with significant wave heights of 4.0 to 4.5 m, are expected between Cape Point and Cape Agulhas on Monday morning, June 13, continuing into the afternoon.
“Together with these waves, strong north-westerly winds (50-60 km/h) are expected along this coast. These conditions may result in difficulty navigating at sea,” the SAWS said in a statement.
Another cold front will also be expected to reach Western Cape by Monday evening. The cold fronts are expected to cause high rainfall as they make landfall, especially in the south-western parts of the Western Cape, from Monday to Wednesday afternoon.
“This rainfall will spread eastwards on Tuesday towards the Eastern Cape. Rainfall accumulations are expected to reach 50-80 mm over the mountainous areas of the Cape Metropole, the western parts of Cape Winelands and the western parts of the Overberg districts between Monday and Wednesday,” SAWS said.
It said this could likely cause flooding of roads, formal and informal settlements in those areas.
“Even though the Eastern Cape is expected to receive some rainfall, the rainfall amounts are not anticipated to have any significant effect on the dam levels for that province,” it said.
Temperatures are expected to significantly drop over the Western Cape and Namakwa district on Monday.
The chilly weather is expected to start spreading into the eastern parts of the country into Limpopo, Mpumalanga as well as KwaZulu-Natal between Wednesday and Thursday.
“With this cooling, freezing levels are expected to also drop significantly, resulting in light snowfall over the southern high ground of Namakwa, as well as the high-lying areas in the western interior of the Eastern Cape on Tuesday, spreading to the north-eastern high ground of the Eastern Cape on Wednesday,” it said.
The weather service said it would continue to monitor any further developments relating to these cold fronts and would issue updates and warnings as required, and urged citizens to follow media forecasts.
IOL