Brace for more severe thunderstorms this week: SA Weather Service tells Gauteng

Gauteng residents should brace themselves for more severe thunderstorms this week. That's the warning from the SA Weather Service.

Storms lashed Gauteng relentlessly last week. Six people, one a pregnant woman, drowned in flash floods. Johannesburg Emergency Management Services said yesterday that it was still looking for the body of three-year-old Everlate Chauke.

Everlate was washed from her father's arms on Wednesday as he clung to a tree next to the Jukskei River near their home in Alexandra.

Johannesburg Emergency Management Services spokesman Nana Radebe said the river was searched from Alexandra to Hartbeestpoort Dam, but to no avail.

The search continued yesterday, from Alexandra to Waterfall Estate, in Midrand, and will resume today.

In Tshwane, emergency management services personnel were still looking for the body of Madelein Murray, who was swept away in a flash flood early on Friday morning.

The search would continue today, said Tshwane Emergency Services spokesman Johan Pieterse.

"We will stay on the alert this week as we are expecting more rain until Thursday."

Pieterse said flood warnings would be issued based on daily updates from the Weather Service.

Weather forecaster Wayne Venter said yesterday that storms this afternoon were possible.

"The conditions are favourable for [severe storms], but it doesn't mean that it will happen. We can upgrade it to a warning, depending on how it develops.

"At this stage...we can't determine where storms will develop or how severe they will be. We can only do that on the day."

Tomorrow and Wednesday did "not look favourable" for more storms, but the possibility would rise from Thursday and into next weekend, he said.

In KwaZulu-Natal, disaster management workers were on high alert after storms on Saturday battered northern areas.

Co-operative governance department spokesman Lennox Mabaso said two children were killed and their father injured in a lightning strike near Nongoma. Houses were damaged in Dannhouser.

The Weather Service warned on its website of "severe thunderstorms with the possibility of hail and strong gusty winds" in KwaZulu-Natal's north and interior.

"We are on the alert for any eventuality," said Mabaso.

The downpours have done little, if anything, to break the drought. Department of Water and Sanitation spokesman Sputnik Ratau said the level of the Vaal Dam, which supplies Gauteng with nearly all its water, rose only from 25.5% to 27.7% over the past few days.

Much of the rain was taken by the Jukskei River system, which feeds the Hartbeespoort Dam.

Ratau said: "The heavy downpours and floods have not fed the Vaal River system. They have fed the Hartbeespoort Dam, which is a recreational dam."

To alleviate Gauteng's water woes, rain is needed in North West, Free State, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape, which are key catchment areas for the Vaal Dam, said Ratau.