According to the South African weather service (SAWS), October 2025 ranked among the wettest in recent history.
The month marked the start of the rainy season for South Africa’s summer rainfall regions, and according to Saws, this year the month brought above-normal rainfall to several areas.
“While a large part of the country experienced below normal rainfall, within that area there were still some stations that had their wettest October in 31 years,” it said.
Parts of the Northern Cape, North West, the Free State, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga experienced October rainfall that far exceeded their long-term monthly averages by at least 25%, with some by as much as 1,000%.
The weather service said, despite some parts of the summer rainfall region receiving below normal rainfall, there were still some stations that had their wettest October in recent years.
“Ultimately, the data illustrate that October 2025 was one of the wettest Octobers on record, with extreme rainfall events affecting multiple provinces, particularly over the summer rainfall region of the country and producing widespread departures from typical October rainfall patterns.
“This may have had notable impacts on sectors such as agriculture, human settlements, water management, and disaster risk reduction,” Saws said.
In contrast, the weather service said, the western and north-western parts of the country remained relatively dry, with totals mostly below 50 mm, consistent with their typical October climatology.
Saws said the outlook for the remainder of the summer season is for enhanced probabilities for above-normal rainfall through the bulk of the central and eastern parts of the country.
Many places can also expect to experience below normal daytime temperatures.
SAWS forecaster Andre Fourie said severe storms are expected at the weekend.
These could result in localised flooding, hail, strong, damaging winds and excessive lightning.
For Friday, he said, isolated showers and thundershowers are expected over the central interior of the country as well as the eastern parts, with some scattered showers and thundershowers spreading across southern Gauteng, the eastern parts of the northwest as well as the southern highveld of Mpumalanga.
“Getting into the weekend, we are expecting some more significant rainfall where we are going for some scattered to widespread showers and thundershowers over the central and eastern interior of the country covering the Free State, KZN and the northwest as well as the southern parts of Gauteng and Mpumalanga.”
Fourie said on Sunday showers and thundershowers can be expected to move slightly eastward over the Free State and North West, becoming more scattered and isolated.
“We’re expecting the widespread showers and thundershowers to move over to KZN, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and most of Limpopo.
“The system will start to exit the country on Monday,” he said.
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