I made the mistake of coming back to the UK for this year's visit for the whole of April and early May.

We stayed in a barn conversion high up on the NYM. We had 1 good day and my Aussie wife and son spent the whole time frozen stiff... ha! 😃 

That's nuts for South Africa.  Especially this late

But allow for the town of Montrose being 2500 ft asl, and the photo probably taken out in the mountains which reach 4000 ft - is it much more remarkable than spring snow on Ben Nevis?

Given that it is at 29.5° from the equator compared with Ben Nevis’ 57° I would say it is probably more unusual. Although is the “continental” aspect of the SA location to consider too.

Fair point. A better place for comparison would be the ski resort of Ifrane in Morocco, 5000ft, 30deg N , which apparently gets regular snowfalls in March at the end of the N Hemisphere winter.

https://weatherspark.com/y/34044/Average-Weather-in-Ifrane-Morocco-Year-Round#google_vignette 

(snowfall is 7th chart down)

I guess that this is a reminder that anyone who believes that it can't possibly snow in Africa should possibly think again.

South Africa is of course, in the Southern Hemisphere so that this perhaps wouldn't be considered all that unusual if this was happening in July or August which is the height of their winter.

However, the Southern Hemisphere is now into its spring which means that they are no longer actually in their actual "winter", and that just makes this event all the more unusual.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240921-s-africa-snowfall-closes-roads-strands-motorists-overnight 

Not unknown but also not that common... And un spring.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20pkwd4dg2o 

Warmer oceans + warmer air = more moisture in the air, stronger storms and more precipitation.  We are busily destabilising our atmosphere and the predictions are coming true - but rather faster than expected.

But not the year of hurricanes, despite earlier confident predictions that it would be a record-breaking year. On a naive view, widely higher SSTs should have guaranteed bigger storms - but the normal trigger events (i.e. troughs moving out of W Africa and crossing to the Caribbean) were  displaced northwards. The Sahel got unusual rain and potential hurricanes were quenched because they entrained dry Saharan air.

I've not seen an explanation yet.

I think there are parallels with forecasts for cold UK winters: the pieces have to fall the right way.  As you say, the analysis will be interesting.

We also shouldn't discount the impact of the  2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption. 

"The underwater explosion also sent 146 million tons of water from the South Pacific Ocean into the stratosphere. The amount of water vapor ejected was 10 percent of the stratosphere's typical stock. It was enough to temporarily warm the surface of Earth. It is estimated that an excess of water vapour should remain for 5–10 years."

The impacts of the irruption contentious perhaps, but what it put into the atmosphere isn't.

Plus if we get a La Nina this year it would be the 4th in 5 years, which is very unusual. For Australia that means wetter and cooler summers, at least for the eastern seaboard anyway.

I’m sure some time back I asked the same question. Apparently the consensus in the scientific community was that the water went into a place where it would have minimal if any impact on atmospheric water concentrations.

Or something like that and it merely coincided with increased rainfalls around the planet due to other factors. I’m certainly no expert and haven't really followed the story but thanks for reminding me.

Thanks for that; some interesting points.

First, the warming effect of the extra 10% of water vapour shows the climate change impact of a warming atmosphere holding more moisture: a ‘double whammy’ if you like, of CO2+water vapour, plus a question mark over the effect on cloud cover (can be positive or negative).

It has also been suggested that the changing ENSO pattern might also be linked with climate change.

I saw a video recently claiming that the Hunga Tonga eruption may end up having a net cooling effect in the longer term. Can't remember which channel I saw it on, or the specific details  but I'll try to root it out later on. 

I am not aware of any atmospheric processes whereby a sudden increase in gases and water vapour following an eruption could have any long term effects. Surely a return to the status quo is the outcome?  If not, surely the effects of every major eruption would have left a lasting measurable impact - which again, I don’t think is the case?

I recall reading an incredible book in the uni library years ago charting the effects of the Icelandic eruption of the late 18th century over northern Europe. Electrified summers, with, and I remember this line, 'no rain without thunder'. Dry fogs (haze) and bitter winters. The effect of this eruption lasted for a few years, with no doubt some lag effect going on as the atmosphere reset itself. 

That's rather fascinating - and it'll be great to read the explanations when they finally get published.

Every time, though, that climate change is mentioned as a likely cause, the army of deniers (and bots for the fossil fuel industry) will dredge up some historical event in that place to attempt to prove that, because 🇪🇬 the Danube flooded just as bad if not worse in the 17th Century, talk of climate change is hokey. The problem is that these events are happening in many more places much more regularly.

That book is probably Island on Fire: The extraordinary story of Laki, the volcano that turned eighteenth-century Europe dark

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Fire-extraordinary-volcano-eighteenth-century/dp/1781250049

A good read too.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/10/october-is-aiming-to-smoke-u-s-records-for-dryness-and-warmth/