As Europeans and Americans were boiling in summer heatwaves this week, South Africans were huddled inside by their heaters to escape a cold front and snow, meteorologist Annette Venter said.
Sutherland, a small town in the Northern Cape, saw snow overnight Tuesday and the countryside was blanketed by Wednesday, footage on local television showed.
There were at least 20 centimetres of snow and it was “icy cold,’’ Venter said on eNCA News from Sutherland.
“There’s blankets of white snow everywhere.’’
Venter recalled that the snow is not as heavy as a few years ago, however, when tourists were stuck because the icy roads were too dangerous to drive on.
Other parts of the country and the small nation of Lesotho – which sits inside South Africa – also see snowfall in winter.