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Vehicle seen with headlights on, in rainy weather
Weather experts are calling for greater public education to improve understanding and response to early warning weather systems. With South Africa’s weather patterns becoming increasingly unpredictable, these systems are critical for saving lives and minimising damage.
However, challenges persist in ensuring timely and effective action. This was the focus of a recent roundtable discussion on extreme weather patterns, and early warnings for all, held in Pretoria.
While the South African Weather Services (SAWS) has an accurate warning system, meteorologist Annete Botha, says the public often struggles to understand the warning levels and their implications.
She says it’s important that ordinary citizens understand the risks associated with different warning levels so they can act appropriately and protect themselves and their communities.
Extreme weather events such as floods and snowstorms are becoming more frequent. This has brought about challenges in ensuring appropriate actions are taken by various stakeholders.
The recent snowstorm in KwaZulu-Natal highlighted the need for co-ordination between local municipalities and agencies.
Senior Manager at the National Disaster Managent Centre, Dechlan Liech Pillay, says, “The early warnings are provided, but there’s no actions linked to the warning from a broad response perspective. So, in the ideal world, what would have happened is the local municipalities that received the seasonal outlook with the hazard profile for snow would have immediately gauged that we are going to have sporadic snow events, during this period until we get to a certain time of the summer, and then put into place certain contingency measures and activities that they needed perform.”
But, the South African Weather Services says it’s not always possible to issue a warning in advance as weather patterns differ, making it difficult to predict with much lead time.
Meteoroligist at the services, Puseletso Mofokeng, has described this as “a complex case of run faulty”.
“What we commit to in terms of exercise, that option that is, that we can only extend by 10s of minutes, not by an hour or date, that is not possible,” she says.
