Cape Town - Capetonians were advised to prepare for unseasonably hot temperatures this week after various weather services predicted high temperatures.
The Cape Town weather office forecast warm temperatures in the high 20s from Monday to Wednesday, temperatures in the low 20s on Thursday, and increasing again to the mid-20s on Friday and Saturday.
Temperatures were expected to drop again on Sunday.
The forecasters said a strong high pressure system situated over the Indian Ocean and extending into the central interior of South Africa, was remaining in a similar position over the next few days in a phenomenon known as a “blocking high pressure”.
“This blocking high is preventing cold fronts from reaching the coastline and slipping south of the country. In addition to this, the high pressure is causing wind flow from the central interior of South Africa to flow offshore to the Cape coast in a berg wind manner, which results in warm temperatures. This wind regime will persist until Wednesday,” the weather office said.
On Thursday, the forecasters said, a cold front, forced by the blocking high to move south of the country, was merely clipping the coastline with the tail of the cold front. However, the onshore wind flow and cloud cover would cause temperatures to drop.
“Clear weather is expected again for Friday and Saturday as high pressure attempts to dominate. However, it is not as strong as at the beginning of the week, and will be pushed eastwards as another cold front will approach for Sunday and early next week,” the weather office said.
In a weather advisory, the SA Weather Service (Saws) also predicted fine and warm to hot weather conditions for the week in places over the interior of the province, with extremely high fire danger conditions expected over the Matzikama Municipality of the Western Cape.
UCT Climate System Analysis Group PhD student Stefaan Conradie said: “Around Cape Town we receive mostly winter rainfall and our summers are warm and dry, so the fire season is usually between December and April. However, along the Garden Route where rainfall occurs throughout the year, fires can happen in any season and fire danger actually tends to peak during winter.”