The year 2025 is shaping up to be one of the hottest in southern Africa, where summer will begin any day now. In South Africa, meteorologists are concerned about late spring heatwaves that have been hitting most of the country for weeks. The UN has warned that hot conditions pose a serious threat to already weak food security on the continent.
Spring is ending in the southern part of Africa, which this year brought with it a heat wave. On Friday, the hottest city on Earth was the tourist town of Skukuza in South Africa, located on the border with Mozambique, where 46.4 degrees Celsius was recorded. Two days earlier, thermometers in the city of Twee Riviere in the southern part of South Africa showed 45.9 degrees Celsius.
“This current heatwave and the ongoing global warming trend suggest that the coming summer may actually be one of the hottest on record,” Annette Botha, chief meteorologist at South Africa's Vox Weather, predicted on Friday.
Botha explained that while heat waves are nothing new, their frequency, intensity and duration have increased significantly in recent years. In eight of South Africa's nine provinces, the current heat wave was preceded by another that lasted two weeks, which is not a common occurrence in spring.
“The heatwave is a painful reminder of the interconnected factors that cause extreme weather events around the world,” she added.
Drought and crop failure
The South African Meteorological Service (Saws) has warned that the hot end of this year is only a preview of what awaits Africa in 2025. The latest United Nations forecasts predict that in the coming year the heat will particularly affect the inhabitants of the Sahel located along the southern Sahara – Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal and southern Africa – Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, worsening already fragile security food.
Most of these countries will still be affected by the drought that hit them in early 2024. It caused crop failures in Zimbabwe and Zambia, leaving 30 million people dependent on food aid. It also left the inhabitants of these countries without electricity because the water level in Lake Kariba, where the hydroelectric power plant is located, is so low that only one of the six turbines is currently working.
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