h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We are experiencing unusually cold weather here in South Africa at the moment. To give you an idea how unusual: a 105-year-old woman has now seen snow for the first time in her life. Well she's lucky, since I still haven't. But it did snow in ALL NINE provinces of South Africa over the last couple of days. It just didn't quite get here.

Here's a photo gallery for those of you interested:

http://www.beeld.com/Galleries/Image/Fotos/Leserfotos/Bibberweer

"Bibberweer" means 'shiver-weather'.

Anyways this is bad news for some people, especially the homeless. They can die of cold or of hunger since people need more food when it's cold. And the electricity supply has broken down in some places. A couple of people have died in accidents caused by bad weather as well.

I could never have imagined it snowing in Africa.

Crazy weather, all over the planet.


GB

Hi Galaxy Babe! Actually snow in Africa is not at all rare. It snows a lot in the Atlas mountains of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. It snows a lot on the south-central plateau and in the cold highland regions of South Africa ... certainly it snows every year in Lesotho and surrounding regions of Natal, the Free State and the Eastern Cape. It even snows in equatorial regions - on the tallest mountains. Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, and the Ruwenzori Mountains have permanent icecaps. It probably snows frequently in the Ethiopian Highlands as well. But in this case the snow came into regions that are otherwise warm. You'll see snow-covered palm trees if you check out those photo galleries.

I did - photo 5 is just awesome!

Amazing, Willem. I hope it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, since it's causing hardship.

I remember the very first time I saw snow - I was 11 - so I can understand the reaction.

Cool photos.

Lovely photos Willem, thanks for posting. Just what I needed as it is very hot here today and I have been working in the garden all day, forgetting to put sunblock on so I am seriously hot and bothered!

It was a surprise as we have had some very mixed weather of late. I don't envy the Olympians performing in the heat.

Websailor

Hello again folks! Dmitri I think the answer is getting rid of homelessness. If people have nice homes and enough clothes and food they can enjoy the snow as well as a lot of other things.

Glad you liked the photos Websailor! I hope you didn't get a sunburn. It's still very cold here but getting better. I checked in the plant house a couple of days ago, it actually did not go below freezing in there. But it still was very cold for me.