The South African Weather Service has published 27 heatwave warnings on social media platform X up to 5 December 2023, 11 more than in 2022. Half of the warnings were for parts of Gauteng, North West and the Free State in the 2-and-a-half months since October.

SAWS declares a heatwave when for 3 consecutive days the maximum temperature at a place is 5ºC higher than the average maximum temperature for the hottest month for that place. Most of the persistent heatwave warnings were in November. SAWS can’t yet confirm if heatwaves occurred at the places for which it issued warnings. But it did confirm that parts of South Africa experienced extremely high temperatures in November.

Between 23 and 28 November, for example, 22 weather stations recorded their highest maximum temperatures for the month. On 27 November, Orania and Kuruman hit temperatures of 40ºC for the first time and Bloemfontein and Mokopane came close with a sweltering 39.6.