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Weather gone mad?
It is not unusual for snow to fall on the Drakensberg in April during South Africa's winter months, but South Africans were scratching their heads and reaching for their jerseys when parts of the Free State, Drakensberg mountains stretching across KwaZulu-Natal and the southern region of Mpumalanga got some snowfall last week in spring after a cold front hit on the back of sweltering temperatures.
Summer is officially meant to start in December, but already it is a scorcher (bar a few days last week when winter returned briefly with a vengeance).
It felt like winter disappeared one day, and summer waltzed in, bypassing spring.
KwaZulu-Natal, which experienced heavy flooding in April last year, is battling severe weather conditions this year.
In October, heavy rains, strong winds, and thunderstorms left nearly 4 000 people stranded.
Level 5 weather warnings of severe thunderstorms were again issued this week in the northern parts of the province.
In September, storm surges wreaked havoc across several coastal communities in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape, sweeping away cars and flooding nearby homes and businesses.
In this week's Friday Briefing, we analyse whether established weather patterns are being altered, and if they are, what is behind it and what this means in terms of disaster management planning.
News24's specialist journalist, Lameez Omarjee, writes the weather service and climate scientists believe an attribution study must be conducted to determine whether climate change is influencing some of the weather events.
She also examines why 2023 is on track to be the hottest year on record and what we can expect for 2024 in light of El Niño.
Finally, we have a submission from the University of Pretoria's Liesl Dyson, who analyses some of our common misconceptions about weather and climate.
We hope wherever you are reading this week's edition of Friday Briefing, the weather isn't getting you down.
Best,
Vanessa Banton
Opinions editor.
Has the weather gone mad or is this climate change?
From damaging floods to snowfall in spring, weather patterns in recent weeks have South Africans questioning if this is strange or the new normal. Lameez Omarjee unpacks with climate scientists and meteorologists about why this is happening.
2023 on track to be hottest year ever, and El Niño will add to warmer conditions
The year 2023 is set to be the hottest yet, with the chance of 2024 being even warmer due to El Niño. Lameez Omarjee examines how some municipalities have been preparing for the possibility of drought, wildfires and heatwaves.
Not every extreme event is due to climate change, natural variability is also at play. In fact, it is still very difficult to qualify a single weather event as being caused by climate change, writes Professor Liesl Dyson.
