SAWS issues heavy rain, possible flooding and storm watches across SA

The South African Weather Service on Friday warned that citizens should expect another afternoon of stormy weather across the country.

The service on Twitter issued watches for areas across a number of provinces, for severe thunderstorms:

• Over KwaZulu-Natal‘s Harry Gwala, uMgungundlovu, uThukela, uMzinyathi and Amajuba districts. This watch is in effect from 2pm Friday until 10pm Friday.
• Across the Free State “except the northern parts” in effect from 1pm Friday to 10pm Friday.
• For “extreme eastern parts” of the Northern Cape from 2pm Friday until 10pm Friday.
• Over the Eastern Cape‘s eastern and northern parts from 2pm Friday until 10pm Friday.

Heavy rain and localised flooding watches are also in effect for:

• Thabazimbi and Bela-Bela districts, Limpopo, from 8pm Friday until 8am Saturday.
• “Susceptible” areas of Gauteng in effect from 4pm Friday to 8am Saturday.
• For northern Free State in effect from 4pm Friday to 11pm Friday.
• For central and eastern North West in effect from 12pm Friday to 2am Saturday. A watch for north-eastern North West is in effect from midnight until 8am Saturday.

A severe thunderstorm warning is also in effect in the Eastern Cape at the time of writing.

Warning:24/01/2020 13h00 TO:24/01/2020 16h00 Severe Thunderstorms- observed north west of Cradock (Inxuba Yethemba LM), moving slowly south eastwards. Heavy downpours, damaging hail and strong winds can be expected (EC).

— SA Weather Service (@SAWeatherServic) January 24, 2020

Follow the South African Weather Service

We provided a summary of the watches currently in effect for Friday and Saturday, but we’d suggest following SAWS’s official Twitter account, especially for realtime updates on South Africa’s summer weather systems.

And be sure to bookmark its warnings portal too, where it regularly updates the advisories and more serious information on the daily.

Feature image: storm clouds gather over South Africa’s interior, January 2020, by Andy Walker/Memeburn