[Update] Cape Town’s Twitter and Insta users celebrate the stormy weather

rain cape town stock

Update #2: 1.40pm: Because Cape Town is, well, Cape Town, #rain is now among the top trending hashtags in the city and the country at present.

Update #1, 1.15pm: Although today’s weather is a welcome respite from the heat wave experienced last week, lightning and driving rain has been wreaking havoc across the peninsula.

In West Beach, a palm tree was set alight by lightning.

Areas in the Cape’s northern suburbs and western coastline are experiencing mild floods.

Much of the Royal Cape Golf Club in Ottery is also well-watered.

Roads across the city remain waterlogged and slippery.

Lightning remains active across the metropolitan area at the time of writing.

Original article: You don’t often see rain in Cape Town nowadays, let alone a thunderstorm. But today, Capetonians woke up to both.

A low pressure system currently twirling its way south-west of the city is bringing some unusual weather to the city today. And people on social media are out in full force to capture their experiences.

A number of tweets began streaming through Twitter around 10am, as thunder and lightning was heard and seen across the peninsula.

Some thought they they woke up in Johannesburg this morning, recalling the last time they experienced a thunderstorm in the city.

Cape Town’s awash with rain, storm clouds and avid social media users capturing the weather

“Thunderstorms in Cape Town. We never hear any thunder here. It’s so rare,” one user tweeted.

Others grinned the city’s typically edgy weather patterns.

While some expressed their delight in the best way possible: emoji.

Instagram users also got in on the excitement too, with a number of videos and snaps of wet landscapes flooding the social site.

#storm approaching #vandawaterfront #capetown #harbour

A post shared by @wendyviola2 on

Welcoming the rain, thunderstorm, grey sky in Cape Town #rain #atlast #capetown

A post shared by France (@franceolicard) on

According to the South African Weather Service, the stormy weather is likely to last for much of today, but is expected to clear by tomorrow.

With the City of Cape Town announcing this week that dam levels have fallen to 23%, it goes without saying that this rain is extremely important.

This is a developing story. Refresh the page for updates.

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