Prepare for a significant weather system.

This thread should have been called "prepare for a day from hell in traffic". I just got to work now :mad:
 
Holy hells in a handbag.....

Your boss must be so heppiness with you.
 
Nah I called and said that it's going to take a while, so I'll have to make the lost time up during the week.

Turned out to be a truck (the ones that carry cars) on fire on the M1, and the chops closed the entire highway! All the alternate routes were backed up too as a result.

From News24:
A burning truck on the M1 north near the Jan Smuts offramp caused massive traffic delays in the morning and all four lanes on the highway were closed.

Mamonyane said the fire was extinguished, but by mid-morning the truck was still there.

"We are hoping it will be removed in an hour or two."

A car fell from the M1 highway onto Empire Road, but metro police were still en route to the scene and Mamonyane had no details yet.
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The Winter2011© dev team must've read my wishlist. They've added rainfall for Gunteng - woohoo! :D
 
I got to work at 11:30 am... 3 hours later than normal. :(

This has got to be the worst I have ever seen it. And it seems like everyone took their stupid pills this morning cos, against all common sense, you get some idiots who insist on stopping at green lights, leaving massive gaps between them and the car in front of them so that everyone in the other lane can pull in front of them, and just stopping in the middle of the road for no reason at all. I nearly gave up and went home several times.
 
:wtf: It just started coming down in buckets here! I was outside about 10mins ago and it was warmish & a bit of wind, now it looks like the scene for a thriller.
 
It got so bad I couldn't see accross the road just now, now just a steady pour.
 
Meh.. still hasn't been too bad in Umhlanga.....

Have to wonder what it will be like at home in the Pines though.... :eek:
 
Oh well guess its not over yet, started to rain again in PE.....
 
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Evacuations-road-closures-after-storms-20110608

Johannesburg - People were evacuated near Durban, some arterial roads closed near Bloemfontein and there was traffic chaos in Johannesburg due to country-wide unseasonal storms on Wednesday.

About 200 people were taken to safety from the Powertown informal settlement, near Durban, after water levels rose in the low-lying area, Eden District Disaster Management Centre spokesperson Gerhard Otto said.

The Klein Brak River, already at a high level, rose even higher when a nearby dam burst after the evacuation.

Homes were evacuated in Lawaaikamp, George, when storm water drains couldn't channel the water away. Otto said the area would be evacuated for two to three days until houses were dry.

River levels in the area were subsiding after the heavy rains, even though there was still a light drizzle.

"It looks like the worst is over."

Warning

In the Free State major routes leading to Bloemfontein were closed, provincial police said.

The N1 was closed between Bloemfontein and Edenburg and the N6 was closed between Bloemfontein and Reddersburg, Colonel Sam Makhele said early on Wednesday afternoon.

"The N8 was just opened now."

The road between the Free State capital and Thaba 'Nchu was closed earlier on Wednesday.

Makhele warned drivers not to take alternative routes near flooded roads, as many of them were untarred and "totally impassable for now".

Chaos

South African Weather Service forecaster Arno Dyason said they were still looking at heavy rainfall on the South Cost and adjacent interior, central Karoo of the Western Cape and south-west part of the Northern Cape overnight.

The Weather Service's Bloemfontein office reported the area had up to 100mm of rain over the last 24 hours, and that the Renosterspruit burst its banks.

Dyason said the previous record for Bloemfontein in winter was in 1964, when 26mm fell over a 24-hour period.

The weather caused chaos on Gauteng roads on Wednesday morning.

"It's horrific. My roads are flooded, there's water everywhere," Johannesburg metro police spokesperson Edna Mamonyane said.

Metro police closed New Canada Road in Soweto because of flooding. In the past cars were washed away on this road. Klipspruit Valley Road would also be closed.

A burning truck on the M1 north, near the Jan Smuts offramp, caused massive traffic delays in the morning. All four lanes of the north-bound section of the highway were closed.

Mamonyane said the fire was extinguished, but by mid-morning the truck was still there.

Under water

Near where the truck was a car crashed through the barrier and onto Empire Road below.

Johannesburg metro police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said End Street, in the inner city, was under water.

Johannesburg residents who woke up to grey skies tweeted about the unusual winter storm on the social networking site Twitter.

"After 6yrs in Joburg, today's weather is the most bizarre," Twitter user @Phinda_n said.

Another user, @VampyreJourno, tweeted that Johannesburg does "everything intensely - including the weather. Felt right at home when I awoke in early hours to sounds of a torrential downpour."

"Miserable rainy weather today in Joburg and the weather is not really on in winter," @joemisika said.

Recovery

The Weather Service however predicted the stormy weather would pass by Friday.

Dyason said the storms were caused by a significant cut-off low pressure system over the central interior of the country.

"It does occur on very rare occasions, but it is unseasonal. It mostly happens during spring and autumn, although we had one during December last year and we are having one now, so it does happen sometimes."

Dyason said the Weather Service was expecting a large area of rainfall over the country on Wednesday including Gauteng, the Free State, Lesotho, parts of the Eastern Cape and the South Coast.

"The rainfall over Gauteng should clear up by about midday," he said.

Snow was expected over the Lesotho and Drakensberg mountains on Wednesday.

On Thursday the bulk of the rainfall would remain in isolated southern and eastern parts of the country with a possible heavy rainfall watch to be issued over parts of the Eastern Cape, especially along coastal areas.

Snow was expected around Lesotho, the Drakensberg and other high-lying areas.

Dyason said minimum temperatures would drop from Thursday and Friday in most parts of the country.

On Friday rain was forecast for the south-east, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, with possible heavy rainfall over the Wild Coast.

Weather in the central interior should improve over the weekend with a "nice recovery" in parts of the country.

- SAPA
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Between the centre of town in Durbs all the way to Toti along the M4, I must've seen about a dozen broken down taxis. Something with Taxis and rain.
 
I live about 200km south from Bloemfontein. All the roads from our town are closed, mainly due to excessive potholes filled with water.

It started to snow this afternoon, making everything quite white and cold. Luckily it stopped now.
 
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