Motorists are urged to turn on their lights and maintain a safe following distance

South African Weather Service FOR more information and up-to-the-minute forecasts, click here. RELATED LINKS: Snow turns city of gold icy white FREEZING temperatures, the result of an extremely cold front, brought snow to the Highveld, with Joburgers waking up to an unusual site – a winter wonderland outside their windows. Read more Weekend storm wasn't Joburg's worst IT may have seemed like the city was about to be flooded, but Joburg has been hit by bigger storms – and even tornadoes – than Saturday's deluge. Read more

No tornado for Joburg Dire email and SMS warnings of a tornado were a hoax, although they did get plenty of people out of work early and into the traffic. October 9, 2007 By Millicent Kgowedi THE chilly weather and heavy rain across Johannesburg over the past few days is "nothing unusual", says the South African Weather Service. And the rest of the week is expected to remain wet and cold. "We have these kinds of weather conditions every year," said Ezekiel Sebego, a forecaster at South African Weather Service. A flurry of email and SMS messages on Monday, 8 October warned that a tornado was about to hit Joburg, causing traffic jams around the city as people left work early. "Traffic picked up earlier than usual around the city as people headed home early," said Edna Mamonyane, spokesperson for Johannesburg metro police. "We are aware of the emails that were sent to people warning them about a tornado and severe storms," Sebego said. "Yes, there were severe storms in some parts of the province - there was heavy rain, hail and extremely strong winds yesterday in Gezina [east of Pretoria] - but there was no tornado." Severe storms are defined as having strong winds, hail and heavy rains. "Sometimes just strong winds and heavy rain without hail results in a severe storm breakout," he added. Mamonyane warned motorists to take care on wet and slippery roads. "Motorists should be very cautious in these wet conditions. We are advising them to switch on their headlights and they should also maintain a sensible following distance." No major incidents were reported yesterday. Malcolm Midgley, of the City's emergency management services, said: "The weather conditions were normal yesterday. Bad weather was experienced over the past weekend when some rooftops were blown off and trees fell on to roads. "These weather conditions are normal and they were experienced in previous years; there is nothing unusual about them," he said. Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 Print this Page E-mail this article to a friend Help using Joburg.org.za