Remarkable
South Africa: Snow and traffic chaos
Heavy snowfall has caused chaos in the mountainous parts of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, with mountain passes closed as thousands of cars and trucks were stuck.
A front of rain turned into snow due to increasingly cold air and persisted for hours in the region. The N3, the major road between the port city of Durban and the large city of Johannesburg in the northeast of South Africa, had to be closed to traffic. Thousands of cars and trucks were stuck. Parts of the Free State province and the country of Lesotho were also affected.
Did you know that…
The Drakensberg is a mountain range in South Africa. The highest peak, Thabana Ntlenyana, is 3482 metres high and lies largely in Lesotho.
Aid was slow to get going and it was only when the army came to help that people were helped much faster. Among other things, the Van Reenen’s pass, a mountain pass that reaches a height of about 1,690 metres, was badly hit. Several dozen centimetres of snow fell.
The Weather Radar showed snowfall in the higher parts of South Africa and Lesotho.
Snow on the highest peaks of the Drakensberg is not unique in South Africa. However, it is rare for so much snow to fall on the lower mountain passes, especially around the start of the calendar spring in September. This is why it attracted countless tourists again this time. Something that did not help with the huge traffic chaos.
However, the snow is melting fast, the temperature is now and certainly in the coming days well above freezing. The mercury will even exceed 20 degrees on the higher mountain passes later this week.
