Antarctic coldwave hasn´t hit only southeastern Australia and Tasmania, but too South Africa, during these days. South Africa is currently reporting a powerful coldwave with snowing in populated areas and minimum temperatures in humid air below 0°C.
During the 3rd decade of July 2020, over large region almost from equator to South Africa was persisting robust pressure high, with extremely dry air. In South African basins above 1000 MASL was cooled down below -12°C, altough maximum daily temperatures was reaching +17°C.
This coldwave is different. 2 cold antarctic fronts were moving above the territory of South Africa during last days and have brought more humid air with combination of extremely cold air in 850 hPa, below 0°C over southwestern part of SAR.
In Buffelsfontein Farm, in Thursday morning, temperatures dropped to -3,4°C (26°F), Johannesburg reported only 0,0°C (32°F) and Cape Town +4,8°C (41°F). 78 from 153 stations reported minimum temperature below +5°C (41°F). Friday´s morning had to be even more colder.
In Keetmanshoop in Namibia (1068 MASL) was cooled down from +28,5°C (83°F) to +1,3°C (34°F) during last 48 hours. Kasempa, Zambia (1234 MASL), reports big temperature amplitudes – from +3,8°C (39°F) was warmed up to +31,0°C (88°F) on Thursday, 6. August 2020, same in Francistown in Botswana, +3,7°C / +26,8°C. Snowing was reported from little county, Lesotho, too. Port-Aux-Francais Iles Kerguelen in Southern French Territories reported temperatures only between -1,8 / +3,6°C (29 / 38°F).
While winter is in southern hemisphere in full swing, Europe and parts of US are sweating. In August 2020, next heatwaves are waiting us, yet.
Documentation of South-African coldwave by https://weatherblog.co.za
Photodocumentation of snowing in South Africa from https://conservationmag.org
Video – snow in South Africa
Documentation of coldwave by Ogimet.com and Wxcharts.com
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