Is it safe to be outside in South Africa today?

Overhead answers that one question for anywhere in South Africa. It reads live open weather data and turns it into a single plain-language verdict — good to go, heads up, or take care — with the reason in ordinary words. Storms and hail, rain timing down to the minute, wind, heat and cold, UV and how long before you burn, air quality, fire danger and where the fires actually are: all of it in one glance. No jargon, no wall of numbers, no account to open. It is built for the everyday question — should I hang the washing out, walk the dog, take the kids to the park, or get the braai going?

Around South Africa right now

• JohannesburgMind the air21° · no rain expected
• PretoriaMind the air25° · no rain expected
• Cape TownHeads up21° · no rain expected
• DurbanHeads up24° · no rain expected
• GqeberhaHeads up20° · no rain expected
• BloemfonteinMind the air24° · no rain expected
• StellenboschHeads up23° · no rain expected
• PaarlHeads up25° · no rain expected

Why every rain radar map is blank over South Africa

If you have ever opened a rain radar app here and found nothing at all over South Africa, it is not your phone. There is no free, open, public live rain picture for this country: the South African Weather Service runs radars, but their live feed is not published openly, and the global radar layers most weather apps draw simply stop at our borders — and, for that matter, at almost every border on the continent. So Overhead does not pretend to have one. Our rain map comes from satellite — a microwave and infrared blend that estimates where rain is falling, refreshed roughly every ten minutes and always labelled with how old the picture is. It is an estimate, not radar, and we say so every single time we show it. Since August 2026 that picture covers the whole of Africa, and so do the active fires we plot — rain and fire only; the verdict, the forecast and the town pages below are South African.

What Overhead does, and what it does not

Overhead is free. There is no sign-up, no adverts, and nothing that needs to know who you are. It works in any phone browser, and you can add it to your home screen so it opens like an app. What it is not is an official warning service. Overhead is advisory — a heads-up built on forecasts and satellite data, and forecasts are sometimes wrong. For official warnings, road closures and emergencies, follow the South African Weather Service and your local disaster management. If our verdict and an official warning disagree, believe the official warning.

Every South African town we cover

• Johannesburg Gauteng
• Pretoria Gauteng
• Soweto Gauteng
• Benoni Gauteng
• Vereeniging Gauteng
• eMalahleni Mpumalanga
• Potchefstroom North West
• Klerksdorp North West
• Bloemfontein Free State
• Welkom Free State
• Kroonstad Free State
• Rustenburg North West
• Mahikeng North West
• Polokwane Limpopo
• Thohoyandou Limpopo
• Musina Limpopo
• Mbombela Mpumalanga
• Tzaneen Limpopo
• Phalaborwa Limpopo
• Durban KwaZulu-Natal
• Pietermaritzburg KwaZulu-Natal
• Richards Bay KwaZulu-Natal
• Newcastle KwaZulu-Natal
• Port Shepstone KwaZulu-Natal
• Ladysmith KwaZulu-Natal
• Cape Town Western Cape
• Stellenbosch Western Cape
• Paarl Western Cape
• Worcester Western Cape
• Hermanus Western Cape
• George Western Cape
• Mossel Bay Western Cape
• Saldanha Western Cape
• Gqeberha Eastern Cape
• East London Eastern Cape
• Mthatha Eastern Cape
• Makhanda Eastern Cape
• Kimberley Northern Cape
• Upington Northern Cape
• Springbok Northern Cape

Weather and air quality from Open-Meteo (CC-BY 4.0). Satellite rain estimate from EUMETSAT H SAF. Active fire detections from NASA FIRMS and EUMETSAT LSA SAF. Official warnings from the South African Weather Service.