"Following on from the record-smashing cold that infected Southern Africa on Thursday, the SA Weather Service (SAWS) has confirmed that a further 19 low temperature records were broken in the past 24 hours alone.
The service had warned that the country to brace for the coldest night of the year; however, it turned out to be the coldest night in recorded history for many locales, with records set 20, 40 and even 60+ years ago falling by the wayside.
Below I’ve compiled a few of the fallen records:
Kroonstad logged a bone-chilling -8C (17.6F), toppling the city’s previous record of -7.7C (18.1F) set in 1990.
Warden’s all-time low from 1989 was beaten by 0.4C, and now stands at -6.7C (19.9F).
In Kimberly, a historic -9.9C (14.2F) was recorded.
Warmbad Towoomba’s –5.6C (21.9F) busted the previous low of -5.5C (22.1F) from 1964 (solar minimum of cycle 19).
While in Johannesburg, a reading of -7C (19.4F) smashed the old record of -6.3C (20.7F) set in 1995 (solar minimum of cycle 23).
You can see the full list from SAWS below:
Towns in the Eastern Cape also experienced their coldest day in decades yesterday.
Grahamstown, for example, saw a daily maximum of just 6.8C (44.2F) — also a new all-time benchmark.
Heavy snow accompanied the record cold.
In the Western Cape region, residents queued up at the Matroosberg Nature Reserve – located about two hours west of Cape Town– to catch a glimpse of the snowcapped mountain peaks:
In a video shot on Uniondale road.
The driver of the vehicle is heard calling the conditions “absolutely bizarre”.
And he continues, saying:
“I have never had to drive through a snowstorm in Africa before.”
These are truly unprecedented conditions for this part of the world.
And anthropogenic global warming (i.e. carbon dioxide emissions) has zip-all to do with it; no, the mechanism behind these polar outbreaks
(and indeed the recent punishing heatwave in the Pacific Northwest)
is the historically low solar activity we’re receiving–namely its impact on the jet streams"
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Saturday, July 24, 2021
"Snowstorm in Africa! -- SA Smashes 19 All-Time Low Temperature Records"
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