It seems like residents in the Western Cape had to endure the sweltering weather conditions over the past weekend in vain, as it’s been reported that the new record-breaking temperatures following the heatwave won’t be accepted into the South African Weather Service (SAWS) climate database.
While it became very hot over the past weekend in Cape Town, SAWS investigated the measurements of maximum recorded temperatures in Cape Town and Robertson of 45.2-degrees and 45.9-degrees respectively.
“Due to certain environmental factors at these sites around the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) equipment, SAWS can confirm that these factors could have resulted in locally induced heat, which influenced the temperature readings of both stations,” the meteorological service said.
It was with this in mind that these values will not be accepted into the database as new maximum temperature records for the month of January.
Therefore, the highest ever recorded maximum temperature in January for Cape Town city remains at 39.1-degrees which was measured on 25/01/2007 while for all other months, the highest maximum temperature of 42.4-degrees was measured on 3 March 2015.
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Picture: Supplied