No Record Breaking Maximum Temperatures in Cape Town – Weather Service
As Cape Town residents battle the heatwave conditions, the South African Weather Service (SAW) said the record breaking high temperatures in the Western Cape will not be accepted into its Climate Database as new maximum temperature records for the month of January due to inaccuracies.
Cape Town and Robertson recorded temperatures of 45.2 and 45.9 degrees on Saturday and Sunday.
However, the weather service said it investigated the temperature recordings and found it to be inaccurate.
“Due to certain environmental factors at these sites around the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) equipment, SAWS can confirm that these factors could have resulted in locally induced heat, which influenced the temperature readings of both stations.”
The weather service said the highest ever recorded maximum temperature in January for Cape Town city remains at 39.1 degrees measured on 25 January 2007 while for all other months, the highest maximum temperature of 42.4 degrees was measured on 3 March 2015.
“While heat wave conditions were experienced over large parts of the Western Cape, slightly cooler conditions can be expected over the next couple of days, with light rain possible along the Garden Route at times.”
The Weather Service also confirmed that a new record-breaking minimum temperature was measured on Sunday morning in Alexander Bay in the Northern Cape at 22.8 degrees.
