The cold front that hit SA on Wednesday, football, the latest taxi strike and Grace Mugabe trended on Google SA this week as winter made a determined resurgence.

In weekend news, Google notes ‘Dumi Masilela Funeral’ trended on Saturday with some 20 000+ searches. The Rhythm City actor was killed in an attempted hijacking earlier this month. Fans searched Google for pictures and video from the funeral service.

Manchester United (20 000+ searches), Real Madrid (20 000+ searches) and Caster Semenya (10 000+ searches) trended in search on Sunday, as fans got down to the serious business of considering their favourite team or athlete’s latest results.

On Monday, Zimbabwe’s first lady hit the headlines - ‘Grace Mugabe’ trended with some 100 000+ searches as news broke of her alleged assault of South African model Gabriella Engels, with an extension cord, in a hotel room in Sandton on Sunday night. By Thursday Mugabe was claiming diplomatic immunity and South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) was tasked with sorting the situation out.

Taxi protests in Tshwane trended with some 10 000+ searches on Tuesday as commuters looked to plan around the latest in taxi strike action. Google believes that the fact that people specifically searched ‘Taxi Strike 16 August 2017’ is possibly an indication of how frequent these are.

Attention turned back to sport on Wednesday as ‘Real Madrid’ trended with some 20 000+ searches. Real Madrid beat Barcelona 2-0, earning Real their second win of the new season, following their UEFA Super Cup win over Manchester United last week.

Thursday arrived with a cold front, and South African attention turned to the weather, and specifically the ‘Snow Report, which trended with 10 000+ searches. The cold front has sent snow to KZN, parts of the Eastern Cape and the Lesotho mountains. Icy temperatures are being experienced across large parts of the country and heavy rainfall is forecast for the Eastern Cape and KZN.

Google processes more than 40 000 search queries every second. This translates to more than a billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide. Google trends data is updated hourly and is available on www.google.co.za/trends.

Search trends in South Africa tend to be news and sports-driven. People search for things they hear or see on the news, and sports search terms trend several times a week, on average, every week.