Snow fell in Boston, in KwaZulu-Natal last weekend. Hundreds of motorists were stranded when rain and snowfall caused major disruptions in the province. Picture: Se-Anne Rall/IOL
South Africans will be in a better position to prepare for snowfalls, downpours and damaging winds, thanks to a king-size testbed that will bolster the country's early warning weather systems.
Testbeds are a way of testing various methodologies in real-life scenarios with measurable impact.
The South African Weather Service (Saws) said the project which kicked off on October 1, will ramp up work done by the Weather and Climate Services for Africa (WISER) Early Warnings for Southern Africa (EWSA) project in South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia, to improve the forecasting ability of meteorologists and disseminate relevant and potentially life-saving weather information to communities.
In a statement issued this week, Saws said under the WISER programme, work is in progress to co-produce early warning alerts for thunderstorms that are accessible and useful to communities.
"Early warnings about severe weather events, for example, heavy rain and thunderstorms, can help communities prepare in a way that saves lives," Saws said.
Saws chief executive officer, Ishaam Abader said SA must scale up its early warning systems.
"Saws's development of early warning systems is an important focus area. Our contribution to and partnership with WISER EWSA aligns with the international EW4All initiative. Early warning dissemination and communication becomes particularly important, considering the complexities of South Africa’s 12 official languages," he said.
Abader added that Saws is working with local partners to close the gap between sharing weather-related information to the country's most rural parts.
"Our early warning system endeavours are supported by the Impact-based Severe Weather Warning System. This introduced a welcome shift from traditional weather prediction to include the potential impact on people’s lives and property of weather events. It assists decision-makers in the disaster response process as well as other sectors, such as aviation and maritime," Abader said.
With early warnings or 'nowcasts', communities can better prepare for extreme weather conditions.
"Nowcasting enables weather forecasters to monitor the development of the intensity of thunderstorms and provide any warnings about the expected path within the next two hours by collaborating with other populations, including disadvantaged groups," the forecaster said.
University of Leeds and principal investigator for project, Professor Douglas Parker, said the idea was to implement only two intensive testbeds, however, after the successful completion of the first testbed in January and February in Zambia with satellite testbeds in Mozambique and South Africa, there has been a request to extend the testbed to ensure early warning of thunderstorms throughout the rainy season.
"Our in-community partners were supportive, as this gives more opportunity for testing models, understanding the information practically and testing the best way to share this information with disaster management organisations and impacted communities. This will give more opportunities to improve procedures and learn how to make the processes sustainable beyond the end of the project," Parker said.
Saws forecasting lead on the project, Nico Kroese, said the warning systems go beyond just having information.
"If we think about 2023 being reported as the hottest year since the gathering of weather data, and we look at the kind of weather we’ve already seen this year – for example last week’s extreme cold and snow in large parts of South Africa – we cannot doubt the relevance and necessity of early warning system," he said.
Kroese said sharing of this information is an important part of reducing disaster.
He said this is what the WISER EWSA project and its bigger cousin, EW4All, are about.
"The king-size testbed over the next several months will give us valuable insights into improving our information-gathering methods and how best to get the potentially life-saving information to those who need it most," he said.
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