Gauteng residents warned to brace for first seasonal storms

Gauteng residents have been warned to brace for stormy conditions next week following some hot temperatures last week.

The Gauteng Weather Service has forecast some cooler temperatures for the province on the weekend.

ALSO READ: Disruptive rain and flooding expected in parts of the Eastern Cape

In Johannesburg, the mercury is expected to dip to a minimum of 11°C, with the a maximum of 29°C, albeit amid windy conditions.

Pretoria will also see cooler weather with minimum temperatures at 13°C, reaching a high of 32°C, also with windy conditions.

However, with winter long gone and the Spring season setting in, the Gauteng Provincial Weather Service said the province is expected to be showered with its first season’s thunderstorms next week.

“Breaking: cooler with a possibility of the first seasonal storms in Gauteng from Tuesday!” Gauteng Weather said.

Western Cape

Meanwhile, the South African Weather Service (SAWS) issued a warning for very cold, wet and windy conditions over the interior of the Western Cape and southern interior of the Namakwa district in Northern Cape from Sunday until Tuesday morning.

This as other parts of the Northern Cape experience extremely high fire danger conditions.

A yellow level 2 warning was issued for disruptive rain resulting in localised flooding of settlements, roads, low-lying areas and bridges with disruption to some municipal services has been issued over Koukamma, Kouga, Sundays River Valley amongst other areas.

Load Shedding

The hopefully dreary weather conditions are likely to prompt residents to unpack their heaters for a few days, which is expected to put more pressure on the electricity grid as embattled state-owned entity Eskom battles to keep the lights on.

On Saturday, the dark lords at Megawatt Park piled on the misery announcing that it be implementing stage 5 load shedding until Monday with the possibility of even higher stages.

Spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said the emergency generation reserves had been depleted by extensive utilisation to limit the amount of load shedding over the past two weeks.

ALSO READ: Eskom to cut your lights with stage 5 load shedding until Monday