KwaZulu-Natal faces severe thunderstorm warnings and flooding
A thunderstorm battered KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday night while a Yellow Level 2 warning for severe thunderstorms issued for KZN for Wednesday remains valid for Thursday.
According to the South African Weather Service (SAWS) warning, scattered showers and thundershowers are expected over parts of KZN on Wednesday but isolated in the north and scattered in the west, while isolated in the east on Thursday with some of the storms expected to become severe over the western parts of Wednesday but over the southern parts on Thursday. The severe thunderstorms are expected to be accompanied by heavy downpours increasing chances of flooding, hail, excessive lightning and strong winds.
Impacts:
- Localised damage to infrastructure, settlements, vehicles, livelihood and livestock.
- Localised flooding of susceptible roads.
- Localised injuries and danger to life due to lightning.
- Power surges due to excessive lightning.
These thunderstorms left a mark in parts of eThekwini on Wednesday. Several roads were flooded, some areas had landslides and some rain gauges recorded 100mm of rainfall.
Weather forecaster Sihle Dlamini reports three high rainfall amounts but also some of the average amounts in KZN.
High rainfall:
- Durban - 96.6mm
- Pennington - 78.8mm
- Mooi River - 33.8mm
Average rainfall:
- King Shaka - 26mm
- Port Edward - 26.5mm
- Virginia - 26.5mm
- Mount Edgecombe - 25.5mm
- Paddock - 23mm
According to Bluff resident Duncan Du Bois, 100mm of rainfall was recorded in the Bluff area after Wednesday night’s storm. He said a resident who lives in Bluff’s south end got the same reading.
Du Bois has a rain gauge at his home.
He also said that in 23 days, 250mm of rain had fallen.
Du Bois added that 2023 started similarly, rain in the first few months but it became drier as the year went on. Last year’s rainfall was shy of the annual average.
thobeka.ngema@inl.co.za