HEALTH AND SAFETY 25
Preparing for the cold
By
Chris Coetzee, OHSS consultant
South Africa starts getting cold in the month of June, and the winter season lasts through to August. Depending on where you perform your plumbing services however, the climate varies by the region you are located in. Be sure to prepare yourself and your team for the weather you will experience.
All images by Freepik
Make sure you wear the right clothes to fit the weather.
Generally, South Africa has great weather and no matter where you are located, the weather conditions can be pleasant for most of the time. However, when it gets hot, it’ s infernal, and when it gets cold, it can be seriously chilly. The coldest place in South Africa is the Northern Cape town of Sutherland, in the western Roggeveld Mountains. Here midwinter temperatures can drop to-15 ° C.
If you hail from the Western Cape, you get all your rain in winter. The winter weather in Cape Town is always cold, wet and unpleasantly windy.
For those of you who stay in the hot, humid KwaZulu-Natal coast, or the lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, these areas offer lovely winter weather with still, sunny and warm days.
In the high interior plateau areas, the winter days are dry and sunny, with clear skies and crisp air. The nights are chilly. Temperatures only drop to freezing when a cold front sweeps in.
The above information on our South African weather patterns highlights the fact that we are able, to a degree, to take into consideration the weather for the season and change our manner of work, the process of tasks and our way of dealing with certain tasks that can be more dangerous during these times.
Working in a cold environment can involve several adverse effects on human performance and health. Workers suffering from exposure to the cold can experience thermal discomfort, increased strain, decreased performance and cold-related diseases and
May 2025 Volume 31 I Number 03 www. plumbingafrica. co. za