An unusual spring snowfall blanketed the Klein Karoo region of South Africa, bringing unusual scenes of elephants and giraffes on game farms trudging through a blanket of white powder.
The snowfall hit the mountains of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces late last week. Though snow is not unheard of in the depths of the southern hemisphere winter (June-July), it is unusual after the start of spring, which South Africa observes on September 1.
Snowfall across parts of South Africa late last week prompted the department of transport to close roads across the Eastern Cape due to slippery conditions.
The snow also hit the Western Cape, where temperatures dropped below zero across parts of Cederberg, the Hex River Mountains and the Matroosberg Reserve.
A weather forecast for the weekend, produced by Snow Report South Africa, shows snowfalls in the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape, as well as in the state of Kwazulu-Natal, with some areas receiving more than 25cm of snow across three days.
South Africans circulated dramatic photographs of the snow on social media:
The snowfall came as media in the United States blamed “global warming” for the imminent arrival of Hurricane Florence in the mid-Atlantic.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.