Gauteng residents warned to brace for hot week ahead

As the cold weather takes its last breath and with the dawn of Spring, regional weather forecaster Gauteng Weather has advised residents to brace for extremely hot temperatures in the week ahead.

The country has seen a series of cold fronts with temperatures dropping below zero.

Gauteng was also enveloped into a winter wonderland in July following snowfall last seen in August 2012.

Scorching weather

According to Gauteng Weather, the temperatures for Johannesburg, Pretoria and Vereeniging have been forecast to be close to and over the thirty-degree mark.

“Warm to hot week ahead,” it said.

Johannesburg is expected to hover between 30°C and 30°C with minimums of 9°C and 11°C.

Pretoria will experience very hot temperatures with the mercury expected to hover between the 30°C to 31°C mark.

Both cities are also expected to experience windy conditions.

Residents have been advised to stay indoors, if possible, apply sunscreen and drink lots of water to stay hydrated during the hot weather conditions.

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Load shedding

The hot weather is also likely to put addition pressure on the electricity grid as residents use aircons and fans to keep cool.

Eskom implemented stage 5 load shedding from 4pm on Sunday until 5am on Monday morning. This will be followed by stage 4 load shedding from 5am until 4pm on Monday.

Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said this pattern will be repeated daily until further notice.

Mokwena said the increase in the deliberate power cuts is necessary to recover emergency generation reserves.

“The higher stages of load shedding is necessary due to the increase in generation planned maintenance, from an average of 3 000MW in June to an average of 6 000MW in September, coupled with the recent multiple generation unit failures,” said Mokwena.

She said Eskom will publish another update should any significant changes occur.

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