A cold front, typical of late winter, made landfall earlier yesterday afternoon.

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Showers (heavy in places over the south-western parts) are expected over the Western Cape, spreading to the western parts of the Eastern Cape later.

The South African Weather Service (SAWS) said some disruptive snowfalls can also be expected over the Western Cape tonight, but mainly over the higher mountains of the region, including Sutherland (Northern Cape) and Beaufort West (Western Cape).

Today, the cold front is expected to have advanced to the Eastern Cape province, when snowfalls (disruptive in places) can be expected at localities such as Graaff  Reinet, Cradock and Queenstown.

In particular, some rainfall along the southern Cape coast and adjacent interior could be heavy, leading to localised flooding. Localities such as George, Plettenberg Bay and Jeffrey’s Bay are likely areas, regarding the risk of heavy rainfall.

Isolated showers or thundershowers are expected to deliver light rainfall to the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the southern highveld today.

Gauteng, as well as the eastern highveld of Mpumalanga can therefore expect a few rumbles of thunder, albeit short-lived and of a non-severe nature, in the afternoon and evening hours.

There will also be a localised risk of runaway fires (dangerously high FDI rating in the red category) over the north-east Free State as well as the Drakensberg highlands of KZN today, ahead of the advancing cold front. This is a typical phenomenon to be expected at this time of year, when there is an abundance of fuel in the form of dry grasslands.

Today will also see marine conditions over the open ocean being fairly unsettled, with very rough seas as well as gale-force westerly to south-westerly winds along an extensive section of the southern coastline, between Cape Point and Port St Johns.

Coastal regions however are not expected to be significantly impacted.

By Wednesday, the weather system will have mostly moved off, well to the east of the country, with only some light residual showers lingering along parts of the Eastern Cape coast.

Winds countrywide will also have lessened significantly, although fresh to strong south-westerly to southerly winds may still occur at places along the south-eastern and eastern coast. The southern half of the country will, however, remain distinctly cold on this day, although daytime temperatures are expected to recover gradually thereafter.

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