Wet weather provides relief for Eastern Cape

When thinking about game parks‚ animals feeding on big‚ green trees‚ rolling hills and glaring sun come to mind.

But different scenes played out in the Eastern Cape’s Asante Sana Game Reserve in the Sneeuberg‚ which translates to snow mountain‚ when wild animals were captured on camera‚ blanketed in snow.

These images‚ taken by Kitty Viljoen‚ have since gone viral.

The snowy‚ wet weather conditions that gripped the Eastern Cape at the weekend will provide much-needed relief following a dry spell in the province.

Port Elizabeth weather forecaster Garth Sampson was quoted on Algoa FM as saying that gauges in the province's dams were slowly rising.

The Krom and Krakeel rivers‚ both of which flow into Nelson Mandela Bay's main supply dams‚ were in flood - an unofficial reading late on Saturday put Churchill Dam at 62.5% capacity‚ up from below 20%.

Sampson said after being virtually empty two weeks ago‚ the Kouga dam stood at 19.93% capacity on Sunday‚ with millions of litres of water continuing to flow in.

Around 293mm of rain was measured in parts of the Langkloof.

Speaking to TimesLIVE on Monday morning‚ weather forecaster Bransby Bulo said it would remain partly cloudy in the Eastern Cape and over parts of KwaZulu-Natal.

"There is no rain expected though. It just remains cold over the areas close to the mountains after the weekend snow. We can still see some snow in the high lying areas in the provinces. The temperatures are cold‚ but there is no more snowfall‚" he added.

Cold temperatures are still gripping the north-eastern parts of the country.

"The morning temperatures are still low in other parts of the country‚ but they are recovering‚" said Bulo‚ adding that it would grow warmer during the course of the week.