Bone-chilling near-record cold for Port Elizabeth
Spring is off to a chilly start in Port Elizabeth – with near-record temperatures captured on Thursday.
South African Weather Service spokesman in Port Elizabeth, Garth Sampson, said the mercury rose to a bone-chilling 10.8°C.
“If you felt a bit chilly in Port Elizabeth yesterday, it is because we had an extremely cold maximum temperature,” he said.
“The mercury only rose to 10.8C. This is the second coldest maximum temperature on record for September. The record of 10.7°C occurred on 2 September 1974.”
Sampson said the coldest maximum temperature ever recorded in Port Elizabeth was 10.0°C on July 15, 1971.
Meanwhile it has been snowing along the R62 in the Langkloof about 100km outside Joubertina since Friday morning.
Former Port Elizabeth resident Pauline May, who was travelling from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth on Friday morning for her niece Cara Howes's 21st, was amazed by the “rare experience”.
It was still snowing by 10am, about 20km outside Joubertina.
“IT IS SNOWING!!!! Actual real proper snow falling from the sky,” she wrote on Facebook.
May later told HeraldLIVE: “This is a first for me to stand in actual snow falling in South Africa. It is so beautiful and amazing.
“It first started snowing lightly and then it really came down and the whole road and fields are all white.”
May said they had left Cape Town at 3am and that it had rained “the whole trip”, and hailed in the Kareedouw area shortly after 10.30am.
The weather service issued a warning about heavy rain that could lead to localised flooding along the coast and interior between Plettenberg Bay and Port Elizabeth overnight into Saturday.
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