Snow Watch 2025

Well it looks like Berg will be having a rather wintery week ahead.  Quite unusual to see that snow is currently forecast to fall on and off for 5 consecutive days!

It is expected to be fairly light though, with only around 4-6cm falling.

 

Another interesting element is that peaks above 3300m may not rise above freezing, day and night, for 5 consecutive days:
 
 

Hey ST

The potential large scale snow even that some were putting on social media was a very long range forecast, I think it was a 7-8 day forecast when it was first circulated.  This was legit indicated by ECMWF model.  However there has been a long history of long range snow forecasts for SA being horribly inaccurate.  Not all the time, but most of the time.  This is especially true when they indicate wild scenarios like huge snow totals, or snow in areas that don't usually receive snow.  I've seen this again and again and again.

I actually saw snow was forecast to fall in Port Elizabeth, 67cm was forecast for JHB, and 27cm in Botswana.  So this was either a faulty forecast or perhaps a 1 in 100 year event and I know which one I would have put my money on. 

It is for this reason that I generally don't ever post about predicted snow that is more than max 3-4 day ahead.   It just generally leads to disappointment for snow enthusiasts.

To be fair, Snow Report did have a disclaimer that it was a high uncertainty forecast, but personally I don't understand why it would be posted in the first place.

I have seen over the past 10 or so years that the snow forecasts are slowly improving in their accuracy.  Back then only 1-2 day forecasts could be reasonably accurate, but often now 3 day forecasts are quite on the money.

Another thing to also consider is whether the various other models are in agreement.  If 2 different models eg ECMWF and GFS are showing the same forecast then that can indicate a higher chance of it being correct.