This week is going to be a hot one for Gauteng and other parts of South Africa: here's how you can prepare

Another heatwave can be expected in parts of the country this week.

According to early weather predictions, a heatwave is expected in Gauteng from Wednesday.

The South African Weather Service (Saws) also issued an advisory of a heatwave with persistently high temperatures in Mpumalanga and the Limpopo lowveld.

It warned of extremely high fire danger conditions expected over:

• the Limpopo valley and western bushveld of Limpopo;
• the extreme east and western half of the North West;
• the western half of the Free State; and
• the Northern Cape, except the extreme southeast and extreme northwest.

What weather systems are contributing to the latest heatwave? 

According to Saws, dry and cloud-free weather over the past few days allowed maximum levels of sunshine to arrive over the interior of the country, with temperatures becoming incrementally higher every day. 

“In addition, a very large upper-air high pressure system, (or anticyclone) has dominated the weather pattern over the southern African subcontinent in the past week, extending over much of Namibia, Botswana and the northern half of South Africa.

“Apart from this feature blocking the arrival of tropically sourced moisture (and thus delaying the onset of our summer rains), upper-air highs are well-known to be associated with large-scale air stability and sinking air masses. Such systems inhibit thunderstorm development, but perhaps more importantly in this case, the sinking air heats up quite dramatically,” it said.

What about the water situation in Joburg?

Newly elected Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero said water supply across the city will be back to normal on Monday. 

This comes after Johannesburg Water placed the city on stage 2 water restrictions.

“We are now hopeful that water will be restored. The levels are doing better today [Saturday]. It’s only Crosby and those areas that are still affected but we think that come Monday the water problem would have been resolved and everybody will have water.

“The challenges are, as we said on Friday, the hot weather conditions are contributing because once the levels are pushed higher and distributed immediately, the water gets finished. So we have to constantly push the levels in the reservoirs, but we are doing better and we are confident that by Monday everybody will have water,” said Morero.

Last week, he said he envisions JoJo tanks in every household in the city.

He was speaking at an inspection of reservoirs and towers in parts of Johannesburg after a water shortage hit some areas.

“We call [for] a water revolution and that involves communities having JoJo [tanks] in each house ... to help us preserve the water for drinking and cooking,” said Morero.

When will it cool down?

Several weather apps predict that scattered thunderstorms and rain can be expected on Sunday and Monday. 

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