Snow Watch 2019

Indeed, there does seem to be a possibility of some snow on Fri evening and early Saturday, but likely restricted to the highest peaks above 3300m in the central parts of the range.

Forecast temps for these peaks are touch and go though, mainly just above freezing. So we'll need to see if these stay on track and dont lift at all.

For now the forecast remains largely unchanged, with snow still predicted to fall on the high peaks mainly between Thabana Ntlenyana and Mafadi.  Temperatures are still very borderline for snow (+2°C), although if this holds, some significant accumulation is possible (20cm+)

As it stands, the models are consistently forecasting that snow is likely to fall across most of the Drakensberg escarpment toward the end of this long weekend, beginning late on Sunday night over the highest peaks, then continuing throughout most of Sunday.

So far this forecast is a lot more convincing than the previous one, as freezing levels are expected to drop to 3100m-3200m, which means snow is possible down to around 2900m:

I see there was some unexpected light snowfalls in quite a few places across the escarpment last night.  Here is todays Terra Modis sattelite image showing the remaining snow in red:

This afternoon's satellite image shows that snow fell in a few scattered regions across the escarpment last night and in parts of Central Lesotho.  The largest concentration seems to be above Gray's Pass.  Remaining snow shown in red:

A cold front will be moving over the Drakensberg this afternoon/evening.  As it stands, only the far south, and far north will be expecting some snow, although it is likely to be very light.  Temperatures will be dropping quite low over the escarpment, as low as -9°C in places:

Indeed! After a very disappointing snow season so far, its encouraging to see some potentially good snowfalls on the horizon!

Some models are indicating around 10cm for most of the escarpment, whilst others, such as the one used by snow-forecast.com are indicating the possibility of up to 50cm in places.

Total possible accumulation over Thursday/Friday:



With freezing levels possibly reaching 2200m in the south, there may even be some ground level snow possible.