S.A. Weather and Disaster Information Service, South Africa
Welcome to the S.A. Weather and Disaster Information Service.(SAWDIS) This service consist of amateur radio operators and private citizens around the country that volunteered the use of their weather and radio stations, weather and disaster photographs, data and information for educational and research purposes. The SAWDIS is a non profit organization that renders a free community based service to who ever needs the information.
Johannesburg - The Railway Safety Regulator was investigating the derailment of a freight train in Ekurhuleni, the organisation said on Wednesday.
The train, carrying anhydrous ammonia, ran of its rails on the Mapleton-Rooikop line before catching fire on Tuesday. This was the fourth incident on the same stretch of railway line, spokesperson Lawrence Venkile said.
"It is suspected that the line was tampered with," he said.
"There have been a spate of incidents in which freight trains on the Mapleton-Rooikop line are brought to a stop, after which their cargo is stolen."
Venkile said the train's driver and his assistant were slightly injured in the incident and were treated at the scene. The fire was put out by the Ekurhuleni emergency service's hazardous materials team.
The line was closed on Tuesday and was likely to remain closed for clean-up operations for the next three days. "The regulator is also aware of a number of countrywide incidents involving commuters and the public, and will intensify safety awareness campaigns," said Venkile.
The festive season is once again upon us and this web story will serve to help you make your final arrangements for your festive season, wherever you may be, in Gauteng, or one of the country’s vacation hotspots.
Thursday 24th December 2009:
A weak cold front moves through the KZN coastal regions by midday and the Atlantic Ocean high ridges along the south coast behind it. An upper high is dominant over southern Namibia but a surface trough develops over the central interior, east of which isolated to scattered thunderstorms can be expected on the south-eastern periphery of the upper high. A 60% chance of rain is also likely along most of the KZN coast due to the cold front. It will be cool along the south and south-east coast, otherwise warm to hot but very hot in places in the Northern Cape, Limpopo province and the Lowveld.
Friday 25th December 2009:
Surface high pressure ridges south of RSA while the surface trough intensifies and moves slightly westwards. However, the upper high intensifies too and ridges over the northern regions of Limpopo province, reducing the chance of thunderstorm development in this region. Thus once again a band of showers and thundershowers is expected for the eastern and north-eastern parts of the country with rain along the east coast and adjacent interior. The most unstable region is over the interior of KZN, southern Highveld of Mpumalanga and eastern Free State, where scattered thundershowers can be expected. It will be cool along the south and east coast, otherwise warm to hot.
Saturday: 26th December 2009:
On Saturday another weak cold front will make landfall over the south-western part of Western Cape, introducing cooling as well as a chance of light rainfall which is likely to spread to the Cape south coast in the evening. The surface trough remains in place from the previous day and isolated thundershowers can be expected for the eastern parts of the country with scattered thundershowers for the eastern Free State, extreme southern Highveld of Mpumalanga as well as the western regions of KZN. Temperatures will be warm to hot over the interior but cool along most of the coastline. Very hot temperatures are expected for the Limpopo and Mpumalanga Lowveld.
The following table gives a more specific idea of conditions for the next three days in major centres.
Pretoria
Johannesburg
Cape Town
Durban
Nelspruit
Thursday 24th December
Partly cloudy, 30% thundershowers 18/29
Partly cloudy, 30% thundershowers 16/27
Clear skies, fresh southerly wind, 13/23
Cloudy, 60% rain with fresh SW wind, 19/23
Partly cloudy, 60% thundershowers 18/31
Friday 25th December
Partly cloudy, 30% thundershowers 16/31
Partly cloudy, 30% thundershowers 14/30
Clear skies, fresh southerly wind, 14/25
Cloudy, 60% rain, moderate easterly wind, 20/23
Cloudy at times, 30% thundershowers 19/28
Saturday 26th December
Partly cloudy, 30% thundershowers 15/28
Partly cloudy, 60% thundershowers 13/26
Partly cloudy, fresh south-westerly wind, 13/24
Cloudy, 30% showers and thundershowers, moderate SE wind 20/28
The South African Weather Service appeals to the public to forward to us any reports or confirmation of significant weather events such as snowfalls, tornadoes or waterspouts, hailstorms, heavy rain, damaging winds etc, when they are observed. Such information can also be used for further research that will contribute to the improvement of weather predictions for that particular area.
Compiled: Karl Loots, Forecaster, National Forecast Centre, Pretoria.
Edited: Kevin Rae, Chief Forecaster, National Forecast Centre, Pretoria
The sun is showing signs of life. There are no fewer than five active regions on the sun's surface, shown here in an extreme ultraviolet photo taken this morning by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO):
Each circle contains a sunspot or proto-sunspot belonging to new Solar Cycle 24. After two years of record-low sunspot numbers and many month-long stretches of utter quiet, this is a notable outbreak. Whether it heralds a genuine trend or merely marks a temporary, statistical uptick in activity remains to be seen. - Spaceweather.com
Image: SuitSat-1 was launched into space from the ISS in February 2006. [NASA Photo]
On February 3, 2006, cosmonaut Valery Ivanovich Tokarev hand-launched the Amateur Radio satellite SuitSat-1 from the International Space Station during an extra vehicular activity (EVA), NASA's term for a spacewalk. A discarded Russian ORLAN spacesuit, SuitSat-1 was equipped with an Amateur Radio transmitter that transmitted telemetry and greetings from youngsters to the youth of the world in several languages. In 2010, an Amateur Radio satellite -- ARISSat-1 -- will once again be hand launched from the ISS. Like its predecessor, ARISSat-1 will transmit messages recorded by students, and teachers and students are invited to "fly a file" aboard this Amateur Radio satellite.
"The ARISSat-1 Team wishes to include a memory stick of files prepared by students on our new satellite," explained Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) International Chairman Gaston Bertels, ON4WF. "This should be a .jpg or a PDF of things the student has prepared." He gave such examples as a paper or a study done on a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) topic, a drawing of spacecraft or a schematic, a journal kept on a STEM topic, a story or news article about a STEM subject or a photo of the class doing a hands-on STEM activity. "Having the students' work be a part of ARISSat-1 means the student is a part of the satellite project and along for the spacewalk and deployment of ARISSat-1."
Dave Jordan, AA4KN, will take delivery of these files via e-mail and copy them onto a memory stick and make them available on the Web for anyone to see, Bertels said. "The quantity of files and the size of a file are unlimited, since memory sticks provide for a very large amount of file space."
Bertels said that files must be either in .jpg or PDF format -- no Microsoft Word documents will be accepted. Jordan will ensure that the material sent in is appropriate for students. Files can be in any language, as long as an English translation is also included as a text file.
SAWDIS - Now here is an ideal opportunity for learners and teachers in South Africa to "Fly a File" of South Africa on board ARISSat-1. The SAWDIS know that it is currently holiday season but make this one a new year resolution for your school. South African entries will be coordinated by SA AMSAT and also placed on a local website. Entries should reach youth@sarl.org.za by 28 February 2010.
The SAWDIS received an early Christmas present this year. A new Emergency Communications Vehicle!! With this vehicle the SAWDIS will be able to communicate to Pluto, Mars and beyond. The only problem is that the SAWDIS need somebody that can teach the SAWDIS how to drive this vehicle without being distracted by one of the communication units. Maybe this vehicle need a driver and operator. $25 000 of communications gear in a $500 car. Jokes aside.
The equipment seems to cover an amazing array of technologies, many of which seem to be redundant. For instance, just how many handheld 144 MHz radios do you need? It seems like the owner of the Ham Car is capable of listening to every police/fire/ems/military channel in the world. Simultaneously. There's a laptop and we assume there's some form of cellular or satellite communication setup for that, too.
Keeping all of this equipment running is almost certainly some form of secondary power source, dozens of antennae and extreme paranoia. There's no reason given for the sale, but we assume he or she realized there's no point in being able to communicate with the world if you have no one to talk to.
So there's a lot of stuff here we can identify, but there's a lot here we can't. Anyone out there a communications junkie who wants to help us out? - TWIAR
THE inferno that coloured the sky a spectacular orange over Knysna on Monday night has left in its wake stark ash-grey hillsides, devoid of their perennial green blanket.
Despite the ferocity of the blaze, only a single structure is known to have been destroyed, thanks to the tireless efforts of firefighters. Knysna municipal manager Johnny Douglas said a triple garage with a vintage car and household goods inside and situated between Brenton-on-Lake and Featherbed, had burnt, as had an “everyday car” which was parked outside. Helicopter pilot Nico Heins resumed collecting water from the lagoon in a sling and dropping it on the worst fire outbreaks at 5am yesterday.
The fire spread out in two opposite directions from where it began above Brenton-on-Lake at about 1pm on Monday, and yesterday afternoon it was still mainly burning towards Featherbed on the one side and towards Belvidere on the other. A third outbreak above Brenton-on-Lake was also being controlled yesterday by water dropped from the helicopter.
Firefighters were travelling up and down the narrow sand roads on the hillsides to douse fires where they could reach them. Entrances to some of these roads were blocked off by traffic police to prevent curious onlookers from clogging them up. The hills closer towards Belvidere are sparsely covered in vegetation due to a fire which occurred about a year ago.
Above Brenton-on-Lake and towards Featherbed, the indigenous fynbos and forest no longer exists. Residents of Brenton-on- Lake were still gathered in groups and taking photographs of the fire yesterday. Ash from the fire was also still being carried across the Knysna lagoon into town on the breeze.
Douglas said firefighters would continue to douse the fire, which would be monitored overnight to ensure that smouldering areas did not flare up again. - The Herald
KIMBERLEY. – ’n Man wat vermoedelik selfmoord probeer pleeg het deur by die Groot Gat af te spring, is in ’n kritieke toestand in die Kimberley-hospitaal nadat hy ná ’n ure lange reddingspoging na veiligheid gebring is.
Konst. Sergio Kock, polisiewoordvoerder, het gesê die man het Maandag omstreeks 14:00 by die gat afgespring. “Hy het glo persoonlike probleme gehad. Hy het sy klere uitgetrek en in ’n kortbroek oor die heining by die taxi-staanplek in Bultfonteinweg gespring. “Een van die mense wat daar werk, het hom gesien en die polisie in kennis gestel.
“Reddingswerkers van die polisie, brandweer en ER24 het by die gat afgegaan en gesien die man lewe nog. “Hulle het hom na bo gebring en hospitaal toe gebring.” Mnr. Lloyd Krause, woordvoerder vir ER24, het gesê die man het sowat 20 m by die gat afgeval en nog 15 m verder gegly. Reddingswerkers het tot 19:00 gewerk om die man uit die gat te kry. Hy is toe na die Kimberley-hospitaal gebring.
“Hy het ernstige beserings opgedoen. Albei sy bene en sy bekken is gebreek. Hy het ook inwendige en kop- en borsbeserings opgedoen.”
Me. Lulu Ntsie, woordvoerder vir die Kimberley-hospitaal, het gesê die man is in ’n kritieke, maar stabiele toestand.
National Warning - Issued on Wednesday, 23 December 2009 at 04.00
Conditions favourable for the development of runaway fires are expected in the northern interior of the Eastern Cape. Very hot and humid conditions leading to dangerously high levels of discomfort are expected in the lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo, and in north-eastern KwaZulu-Natal.
Wednesday: Isolated thundershowers are expected to continue developing in parts of the central and eastern interior, east of the surface trough. A weak cold front brings light rain to the south-western Cape. Thursday: Cloudy and cooler conditions expected along the east coast with light rain in places, while isolated to scattered thundershowers develop in the central and eastern interior. Friday: A surface trough persists in the western interior, with thundershower development expected in the central and eastern parts of the country. Cloudy and cool conditions with light rain persist along the east coast. Saturday: Clearance is expected along the east coast while a cold front brushes the Cape south coast, bringing a chance of light rain. Thundershowers persist in the central and eastern interior. Sunday: Cooling spreads to southern KZN while a band of showers and thundershowers is expected in the eastern parts of RSA. Monday: Cooling spreads into the lowveld and north-eastern interior. It will be fine and hot to very hot in the west.
A train driver and his assistant were injured when a goods train derailed near an informal settlement in the Boksburg area this afternoon. Details as to why the train derailed remains a subject for police investigation, however it appears that large rocks were placed on the railway line causing the train to leave the tracks and overturn.
Paramedics and emergency personnel arrived on scene and found that the train driver and his assistant sustained minor injuries. Paramedics stabilized the injured on scene and then transported them to the Netcare Union Hospital for further treatment.
The area around the accident site had to be cordoned off by the emergency services as the cargo on the train was Ammonia Hydroxide.
A Transnet fire vehicle on the way to the crash site tried to make a U turn at the intersection of the R554 and Barry Marais road and overturned. One of the crew members was seriously injured and after Netcare 911 paramedics stabilized him on scene, they transported him to the Netcare Sunwoodpark hospital for further treatment.
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