Cape Town, surrounding mountains brace for ‘heavy’ rain, possible snowfall

Looks like Cape Town’s first heavy rain of the winter months has arrived.

On Saturday, the South African Weather Service on Twitter issued a number of warnings for localised flooding across the Western Cape. This is thanks to a cold front which is currently brushing through the city, with the weather abating on Monday afternoon.

A #coldfront will be moving in over the #WesternCape on Sunday night into Monday morning bringing much needed #rain for #CapeTown and surrounding mountain catchment regions. A heavy rainfall/localized flooding WATCH has been issued for some areas. Updates to follow. pic.twitter.com/AHPbBzJD8g

— SA Weather Service (@SAWeatherServic) May 18, 2019

“A cold front will be pushing in over the Western Cape in the next few hours with rain across the western parts of the Western Cape overnight to tomorrow late morning clearing from the west,” it tweeted in another post on Sunday evening.

“15-25mm widely expected and up to 40-50mm in western mountains.”

Good evening (19 May 2019). A cold front will be pushing in over the Western Cape in the next few hours with rain across the western parts of the Western Cape overnight to tomorrow late morning clearing from the west. 15-25mm widely expected and up to 40-50mm in western mountains pic.twitter.com/JXH4FIMn4n

— SA Weather Service (@SAWeatherServic) May 19, 2019

Cape Town is in desperate need of the rain too. According to the City of Cape Town’s latest dam level report, the combined storage of all six of its large supply dams topped 45.6%. That’s more than last year’s levels of 21.3%, but definitely worrying should we see low rainfall this winter.

UCT’s CSAG has noted it’s been an average year for rain for many important areas across the Cape, including our largest dam, the Theewaterskloof, and the second largest, the Voëlvlei Dam. This week’s cold front can largely change this though.

And there’s more. According to local snow tracking service Snow Report, we could possibly see some flakes fall on the peaks of the Western Cape’s tallest mountains, including the Matroosberg.

The first real Western Cape snow might finally be arriving on Monday morning as a cold front moves in from the west. Details at https://t.co/YFDSIxvO9B and https://t.co/E6XCJq1nqg pic.twitter.com/udixbTfaST

— Snow Report SA (@SnowReportSA) May 19, 2019

“We’re seeing the possibility of a few centimetres of snow on the high peaks of the Hex River Mountains around Worcester, De Doorns and Ceres,” it added on its website.

Feature image: Andy Walker/Memeburn