A rare snowfall dusted Johannesburg and other high-lying parts of South Africa on Monday, with weather services warning of potential road closures and dangerously cold temperatures.
Residents in the business district awoke to snowfalls lightly covering rooftops and gardens as a cold front that hit the country late last week morphed into a weather system known as a “cutoff low.”
Children in a Johannesburg kindergarten made snowballs and tried to catch flakes with their tongues, some of whom had never seen snow before.
“We last saw this type of weather in 2012,” said Puseletso Mofokeng, a senior forecaster with the South African Weather Service (SAWS).
Snow had been reported in parts of Johannesburg’s Gauteng province and was expected to fall throughout the day, as well as in high-lying areas of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, according to Mofokeng.
“Roads may be closed,” he warned.
Johannesburg is located at an elevation of over 1,700 metres (5,600 feet) and is in the midst of the southern hemisphere winter.
However, snow in the city is still a rare occurrence; prior to 2012, heavy snowfall occurred in 1996, according to Mofokeng.
“It is been such a long time, I am so happy,” Johannesburg resident Lerato Matepese said.
SAWS warned that icy temperatures posed a risk to street dwellers in a country where poverty is still prevalent.
Rough seas and strong winds were also expected to make conditions dangerous for small vessels off South Africa’s eastern coast.