Communities in the Western Cape are facing a severe weather crisis as multiple cold fronts bring icy weather, disruptive rain and damaging winds, causing widespread displacement. And five more major cold fronts are expected over the next week.

Listen to this article 9 min Listen to this article 9 min About 4,000 people who had been left homeless in Khayelitsha after gale-force winds destroyed more than a thousand informal structures on Thursday, 4 July, were lashed by a new series of cold fronts on Sunday.

And the severe winter weather is expected to continue through the week.

Western Cape communities are buckling under heavy rain and damaging, gale-force winds, as well as plummeting temperatures, with snow falling over the Boland and Koue Bokkeveld mountains and up into the Karoo.

The latest series of cold fronts, which started in the early hours of Sunday, 7 July, are forecast to continue throughout the week.

On Sunday afternoon, heavy seas combined with the new moon spring high tide hammered the Atlantic coastline.

The South African Weather Service (Saws) had already adjusted its warning for damaging winds from Level 6 to Level 8 for Sunday, and warned of expected widespread structural damage to informal and formal settlements.

Sunday's series of cold fronts resulted in gale-force westerly to northwesterly winds of 70-90km/h, gusting up to 120km/h over the City of Cape Town and the Drakenstein, Stellenbosch, Overstrand and Theewaterskloof municipalities.

Weather warnings in...