Global Warming

Is Al Gore visiting South Africa?

Passengers on board the train that left Johannesburg for Cape Town on Monday will want to wrap up warmly, especially those in third class.

When it passes through the Karoo railway junction town of De Aar in the small hours at about 11pm, the mercury will be on its way to plummeting down to minus eight degrees Celsius.

According to the South African Weather Service, isolated De Aar is expected to suffer the lowest temperatures in South Africa on Tuesday, brought about the current big chill.

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South African Weather Service forecaster Stella Nake said Cape Town can expect another cold front on Thursday.

A strong south-westerly wind is expected to pick up on Thursday afternoon followed by rain until the early hours of Friday morning, she said.

Further east, near George, long-time resident Claude Pretorius, who is adviser to a women-owned project that involves building a cableway up the Outeniqua mountains, said he had never seen snow as far below the peaks.

"It's 600m from the peaks. It's normally only 100m or 150m," he said.

"I have never seen snow that low down on the mountain -- and I was at school here before [World war II]."

The Weather Bureau reported snowfalls on other Eastern Cape and Western Cape mountains: Hogsback; Tsitsikamma; Winterberg; the Penhoek Pass and the Baboesberge.