PRETORIA: South Africans will have to brace themselves for a cold, wet and possibly snowy weekend.
This comes as a cut-off low-pressure system develops over the north-western interior of the country by Friday.
The SA Weather Service has warned that in Gauteng residents should expect thunderstorms, combined with strong and gusty surface winds.
This will spread across Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal in the evening and parts of Limpopo by Saturday.
"Maximum temperatures are not expected to exceed 14°C over the interior of the country, with maximum temperatures barely able to reach 8 °C.
“The public can look forward to general clearing conditions as well as recovery in daytime temperatures from Monday onwards," said forecaster Wayne Venter.
The weather service also said light snowfall is expected over high-lying areas of the Western and Eastern Cape, spreading to the Lesotho Drakensberg regions.
The City of Joburg’s Emergency Management Services said it has noted with concern the warning message from weather bureau concerning the significance drop in temperatures in most parts of Gauteng.
"This drop in temperatures means that our residents throughout the City will be tempted to use all sorts of heating devices to try and warm themselves against this extremely cold temperatures in the process making themselves vulnerable to fire incidents at home.
We therefore would like to urge all our residents to use all heating devices safely, that is, imbawula, paraffin stoves, candles, not to leave them unattended while in use to prevent fire incidents at home," said Joburg EMS spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi.
IOL