Selma Ikela
Windhoek-The Namibian Meteorological Service says the country will experience “hot conditions” during the coming days that will “continue to prevail”, but it expects rain showers in the subsequent days.
Chief forecaster operations Odilo Kgobetsi said the hot climate people experienced all over the country resulted from the dryness over Namibia caused by a persistent high-pressure system.
“A high pressure system causes dry air to subside over a region, resulting in clear sky condition,” Kgobetsi explained.
However, once that high-pressure system retreats rain does fall and the meteorological service therefore expects the heavens to open up in various parts of the county in the course of this week.
By last Friday afternoon, Windhoek and some parts of the country such as Otjiwarongo had received some showers, which suppressed the high temperatures experienced there. That rain patterns is expected to prevail until Wednesday this week.
Nevertheless, in the next couple of days Namibia will still see hot conditions continue to prevail in certain parts of the country, because the high-pressure system has not died down completely.
“But there are areas were the retreat is evident and more clouds will be seen breaking through and rain setting in over Namibia,” he said.
He said they had expectations for rain because the prevalent system was retracting gradually from the region of Namibia and as it weakened, it would give way to more cloudiness and the rain would set in.
The heat wave the country is presently experiencing came about because of a high-pressure system, which was dominant in the mid-level.
“This was the main condition causing dryness, and at same time hot conditions. Mid-levels are standards levels in the atmosphere, once you have high pressure systems prevailing it normally causes air to go down and at the same time when this air goes down it causes heating over the place were this system normally prevails,” he said.
During this heat wave, Kgobetsi said the southern part of the country saw temperatures ranging from 38 to 42 degree Celsius.
In comparison, he noted that when it became hot in Windhoek, temperatures normally went up to 33 degree Celsius but because of the prevalent system, the temperatures went up to 36 degree Celsius.
Kgobetsi advised people to take precautionary measures such as consuming as much water as possible, avoiding direct heat and carrying an umbrella or putting on a hat.