NATIONAL NEWS - The Western Cape has experienced heat wave conditions over the past weekend 21 – 23 January.
Heat wave conditions are characterized by prolonged periods (at least three consecutive days or more) of temperatures (min/max) exceeding the average of the hottest month by 5 0C or more.
South Africa is still in the summer season, thus hot conditions are normal during this time of the year.
While it became very hot over the past weekend in Cape Town, the South African Weather Service (SAWS) investigated the measurements of maximum recorded temperatures in Cape Town and Robertson of 45.2 0C and 45.9 0C, on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Due to certain environmental factors at these sites around the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) equipment, SAWS can confirm that these factors could have resulted in locally induced heat, which influenced the temperature readings of both stations.
For this reason, these values will not be accepted into the SAWS Climate Database as new maximum temperature records for the month of January.
The highest ever recorded maximum temperature in January for Cape Town city therefore remains at 39.1 0C (measured on 25/01/2007), while for all other months, the highest maximum temperature of 42.4 0C was measured on 3 March 2015.
SAWS can confirm that a new record-breaking minimum temperature was measured on Sunday morning, 23 January (Table 1) in Alexander Bay.
While heat wave conditions were experienced over large parts of the Western Cape, slightly cooler conditions can be expected over the next couple of days, with light rain possible along the Garden Route at times.
The South African Weather Service would like to thank the public for their interest in this matter.
