Snowfall surprised residents of Johannesburg and other parts of South Africa on Monday, a rare weather phenomenon in the country where authorities have warned of possible road closures and a risk of a drop in temperatures.
Johannesburg residents woke up to snowfall lightly covering rooftops and gardens as the cold front that hit the country late last week transformed into a weather system dubbed a “cold depression” or “intersection depression.”
Photo: AFP
At a kindergarten in Johannesburg, children had fun making snowballs and trying to catch snowflakes with their tongues, some for the first time in their lives.
“The last time we had this kind of weather was in 2012,” Puseletso Mofokeng of the South African Center for Meteorology (SAWS) told AFP.
Photo: AFP
Snowfall has been reported in the southern parts of Gauteng province, where Johannesburg is located, and snow is expected to continue throughout the day, which Mofokeng said will also affect the high-altitude areas of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
“Roads could be closed,” he added.
Photo: AFP
Seeing snow is not uncommon in Johannesburg, which sits at an altitude of over 1700m, but it is still quite rare. Before 2012, the city was hit by heavy snowfalls in 1996, the meteorologist recalls.
SAWS has warned that freezing temperatures pose a risk of homelessness in a country where poverty remains high. Rough seas and strong winds are also expected to create difficult conditions for small vessels off the east coast of South Africa.