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Healthy water levels are returning in Cape Town’s dams.
- Cape Town’s dams have exceeded 90% capacity thanks to recent rains.
- Many stations reported good rains in July.
- The danger of a drought as a result of climate change continues to lurk.
Cape Town’s dams have passed the 90% mark for the first time this year, as constant rain helps replenish the city’s water supply.
According to data from the city of Cape Town, the dam levels were 90.7% as of August 31 and the key Theewaterskloof dam was at 87.9%.
This is significantly higher than 2019 levels when capacity was 81% and the largest dam, Theewaterskloof, was at 72.2%.
Western Cape dam levels are also improving to 69.5% of capacity, up from last year at 66% at the same time.
Data from the South African Meteorological Service (SAWS) revealed that the rains were healthy in July with several stations reporting above-normal rainfall for the month ending August 1.
Drought conditions
The Western Cape weather stations at Atlantis, Cape Columbine, Darling and Lambertsbaai reported rainfall well above the norm, and very few stations reported rainfall below 10mm.
While the rainfall and dam levels are good news for the Western Cape, the SAWS cautioned that, overall, South Africa remains a water-stressed country.
“During the three-month period from May to July 2020, almost the entire country received below-normal rainfall. Near-normal to above-normal rainfall was received in parts of the Western and Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, [the] North West and Mpumalanga “reads SAWS Drought Monitoring report – July 2020.
READ HERE | Cape Town’s drought may not end as dam levels decline by 0.6%, city says
It warned that the Eastern Cape and Northern Cape remained vulnerable to drought conditions.
South Africans have to prepare for warmer weather as the weather slowly changes.
According to the SAWS 2019 Annual State of the Climate, last year was 1.1 ° C warmer than the norm (calculated from the 1981-2010 baseline period), indicating a warming of 0.16 ° C per decade .
That report highlighted the very dry (less than 75% of normal rainfall) 2017 for the Western Cape. You have to go back to 1996 for the previous wet year (more than 125% of normal rainfall).
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