It’s been warm, wild and wet across South Africa in 2019, and it has certainly felt like a year of extremes. We’ve seen tornados in KZN, tremors in Gauteng, and one of the hottest days ever recorded in the country. These are the most significant – if not alarming – weather records smashed in the past 12 months:
South Africa – new weather records for 2019
Driest August ever in the Eastern Cape
Nelson Mandela Bay officially clocked its driest-ever month of August since records began in 1900, clocking just 3.3mm of rainfall in total. The last time this part of South Africa had seen anything like this little rain was way back in 1985, when a miserly 4.7mm was measured in the month.
Weather records: Highest April rainfall in Potchefstroom
Senior Grain Analyst Thys Grobbelaar said the North West region had enjoyed a downpour of 188.7mm within the month of April, comfortably beating the 117mm set in Potchefstroom during the 1942/1943 agricultural season.
Cape Town records its highest-ever pollen count
The pollen count in Cape Town reached a new record this year, at almost five times the level regarded as “very high”. The amount of tree pollen in the air was 14% higher than it was a decade ago. Tree pollen levels had “surged to a whopping 235 grains per cubic metre” by September 2019, when the previous highest total was smashed.
Hottest average day temperatures for winter spike in Eastern Cape
Several weather stations experienced the warmest average daytime temperatures on record for the three winter months. This reflects the highest temperatures recorded over the entire hours of daylight, rather than just one specific peak on the thermometer. Areas where the previous highest totals were toppled include:
- Cradock: 23.7C
- Komani: 20.9C
- Mthatha: 23.6C
- Cradock: 22.3C
- Port Elizabeth: 21.9C
The tiny town with a record that wasn’t a record – but it’s now another weather record
We love the story of Vioolsdrif, Northern Cape. The border town near Namibia enjoyed a brief glimmer of fame, before fading back into obscurity this month. It was briefly believed the outpost had recorded a temperature of 54C – which would have been the hottest day ever seen in South Africa.
But just 24 hours after they thought they’d snared some history, reality devastated them: A faulty data component on a local weather station had given a false reading. They “only” reached 47.5C, and although that wasn’t the warmest day in our history, it still holds its own as “Mzansi’s hottest ever temperature recorded in November”. So, you know, there’s that…
New November temperature record set for South Africa today – 27/11 – as #Vioolsdrif records 47.5C, beating its old record of 46.5C. https://t.co/UaynbBhO4x
— MeteoGib (@MeteoGib) November 27, 2019
Cape Town sets a new maximum temperature for September
Parts of the Mother City were fried by temperatures of 35C and above towards the end of September. The unseasonable scorcher turned out to be the hottest maximum temperature ever clocked in CPT during this particular calendar month. Not exactly what the dams needed.
Cape Town, South Africa makes new September max temperature record
— Al Jazeera Weather (@AJEWeather) September 7, 2019
Two new weather records this week in South Africa
Just to prove that records really are tumbling all the time in South Africa, we can even pick two out of the top-drawer from the past week. Two locations in KwaZulu-Natal endured the most rain they’ve ever seen in a single day: Richards Bay copped 72mm over 24 hours, whereas Pennington South ended up with 149mm of the wet stuff. Yikes…
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Article source: https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/weather/hottest-day-in-south-africa-ever-weather-records/