Rainfall in Pretoria breaks records
Tshwane emergency services responded to more than 41 emergencies because of heavy rains.
Photo: supplied
Last week’s heavy rainfall throughout the province broke several records, according to the SA Weather Service.
Records were broken at four monitoring sites, namely the Presidency, Bolepi House (the weather headquarters), Unisa and Irene, Pretoria Moot Rekord reports.
READ MORE: WATCH: Chaos on Pretoria roads as rain continues
The longest-standing record was the 56.6mm rainfall measured at The Presidency on 26 March 1995. It is now a whopping 84mm.
The second longest standing record was broken was in Irene. It increased to 121mm from 87 on 4 March 1997.
SA weather service spokesperson Lucky Dlamini said the heavy downpour was attributed to high pressure in the eastern parts of the country.
On Friday, the weather service said 121mm of rain had fallen in the city by Friday morning.
The record-breaking rain wreaked havoc throughout the city.
The biggest problem reported was multiple power outages, which affected both suburbs and townships.
Affected areas included Mamelodi, Lynwood, Faerie Glen, Gezin, Garsfontein and Silver Lakes.
Metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba said power would be restored as soon as the weather conditions were favourable for technicians to work.
In the east of Pretoria, trees had fallen on to power lines, which contributed to the outages, according to ward 41 councillor Ben Chapman.
Numerous reports of trees falling on to roads in the east of Pretoria were received.
The biggest headache, however, seemed to be the numerous potholes as well as sinkholes, which surfaced during the downpours.
Six new sinkholes were said to have been reported in the Centurion area on Thursday.
Tshwane emergency services department was said to have attended to more than 41 flooding emergencies because of the heavy rains.
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