Snowfall - The African Mirror

Jul

2023

Johannesburg residents stunned by once-in-a-decade snowfall

RESIDENTS of South Africa's biggest city Johannesburg were stunned by the first snowfall in over a decade, with some children seeing snow for the first time. While parts of South Africa regularly receive snowfall over the southern hemisphere winter months around June to August, Johannesburg last saw snow in August 2012. After getting her picture taken on Nelson Mandela Square in the financial district, Jennifer Banda told Reuters that she was pregnant the last time it snowed. "Eleven years down the line, it's exciting that we have snow," she said. South of the city in Brackenhurst, a Reuters photographer saw…

Nov

2022

By The African Mirror

African mountains are feeling the heat of climate change

ENVIRONMENT

MOUNTAINS are special places. They have distinctive climates that are generally cooler and wetter than surrounding lowlands, and they host plants, animals and landscapes that are uniquely found in these environments. However, mountains are under threat because of climate change, and this has an impact on every single property of mountains, including their climate, weathering and erosion processes, soils, ecosystems, water resources, geological hazards, regional economies, and cultural practices. My work on the impacts of ongoing climate change in mountains highlights the sensitivity of mountain properties and processes to changes in temperature and precipitation – mainly expressed in mountains as…

Feb

2022

By The African Mirror

Snowfall in the Sahara desert: an unusual weather phenomenon

ENVIRONMENT

SNOWFALL in a hot desert may seem a contradiction but snow has been recorded several times in the Sahara Desert over the last decades, most recently in January 2022. Thus, snowfall may be unusual but is not unprecedented in the region. Author JASPER KNIGHT, Professor of Physical Geography, University of the Witwatersrand In order for snow to form, two distinctive weather properties are needed: cold temperatures and moist air. The presence of snow reflects a special combination of air circulation in the atmosphere and the nature of the land surface upon which the snowfalls. Although the Sahara commonly experiences very…