The South African Weather Service has issued to the following warnings and advisories:

National Warning - Issued on Tuesday, 21 July 2009 at 15.00

Very cold conditions are expected on the south-western high ground of Northern Cape, the high ground areas of Western Cape and the western high ground of Eastern Cape, with possible snowfalls at night along the south-western mountains of the Eastern Cape west of Port Elizabeth at night. A strong south-westerly wind is expected to reach gale force at night between Cape St Francis and East London.

ADVISORIES FOR 23 TO 24 JULY 2009 Very cold wet and windy conditions to set in along the southern mountains west of Port Elizabeth with a chance of overnight snow continuing in the morning. Light snowfall can also be expected on the Sneeuberg. This weather will spread to the southern KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and southern Drakensberg during Thursday with a possibility of snow also on the KwaZulu-Natal side of the Drakensberg. Heavy falls of snow expected on the Eastern Cape Drakensberg. By Friday very cold conditions are expected to spread to the highveld and escarpment of Mpumalanga. Strong south-westerly winds are expected to reach gale force between Cape St Francis and East London on Thursday and will spread to Durban. Rough seas, in excess of 5m, are expected between Cape Columbine and Richards Bay on Thursday and on Friday.

 Stay tuned to local weather information regarding this system.

 TORNADO OVER PAARL!?

Not quite but very close. This amazing photograph was taken by Ian Willis in Paarl on Monday 13 July 2009 in the morning. This is not in fact a tornado but the funnel of a 'landspout', a landspout is like a waterspout but only on land, these systems are not as damaging as tornadoes and are not formed from a mesocyclone which is present in a supercell. Rather these landspouts develop from towering cumulus clouds and tend to have more tube-like features than tornadoes do. It is unknown whether this funnel infact ever reached the ground to become an actual 'landspout' as it was weakening when Ian Willis was taking photos.

The best part about this funnel is we have the radar data just minutes prior to the event. If you scroll down a bit there is a radar image from 13 July 2009 09:00+-GMT (11am South African Time), And this funnel had occured about 40 minutes later, so the squall line which you are looking at on radar imagery is the same squall line that formed this funnel. Squall lines are known to have multiple vorticies along it and these vorticies can sometimes form tornadoes or in this case funnels. It is an extremely rare event, especially here in the Western Cape and Ian Willis was lucky to have managed to capture this great event on camera.

Should you capture any rare or beautiful weather events please feel free to contact me at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and you can have your photos published on the site.

Heavy rains continued to pile onto already saturated ground on Monday the 13 July 2009, on the 12 July 2009 a 24 hour rainfall of 91mm was measured in Somerset West with a further 31mm falling between 7pm on July 12th and 7am on July 13th. Putting the 36 hour total rainfall at 122mm. This heavy rain has left numerous roads closed off in the Cape Town area due to mud slides, overflowing rivers and general flooding.

At 11 am on Monday 13th July a band of high intensity rain passed through Somerset West dumping a likely 15+mm in a matter of minutes. Below is a radar image courtesy of the South African Weather Service showing the band of rain which passed through on Monday morning. Further heavy rain is expected, though things should calm down in the next 24 hours.

For more photos of the Cape Town floods be sure to check out News24's Image Gallery

A cold front arrived in Cape Town late between Saturday 11 July 2009 and early on Sunday morning. The model runs prior to this event continued to show only moderate rainfall totals, though this was not the case as I personally measured 91mm in a 24 hour period in Somerset West. This was from 7pm on Saturday to 7pm on Sunday. These heavy rains brough damage to numerous houses (including mine) as waters piled up and seeped beneath doors.

Gordon Richardson from CapeTownSkies also reported the following from the Cape Town area:

Damage report (personal observation):

1. The Liesbeek River exceeded its flood level, causing damage to house(s) and in the Newlands area.

2. One of the streams coming off Devil's Peak seems to have overflowed. The road leading down from Rhodes Memorial was filled with fist-sized rocks and mud. The intersection with the N3 was flooded, and southbound traffic is backed up. The exit ramp from UCT southbound has been partly undermined.

3. The Liesbeek River overtopped the Rouwkoop Rd bridge in Rondebosch. There is mud on the road surface, and some of the road has subsided slightly. Pavements and nearby walkways are covered in debris and mud.

At the time of writing this article the rain was still coming down with no breaks and the rain gauge showing a further 7mm in the past hour since 7pm.

The picture below is of the Beaumont Primary School field in Somerset West.

Should you wish to share any photos of events you can e-mail them to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it