The numbers are in, and Cape Towns dams are officially 79.2% full. That’s a whole 8.7% fuller than this time last week. And that’s a lot of water. I know you guys like numbers, so I’ll pop the increase right here:
78,145,227,000 litres
That’s almost 80 BILLION litres more water than we had last week. Enough to last us almost 100 days at our current usage (which will obviously spike as soon as it stops raining).
Delicious. Just look at the near exponential increase over the last couple of weeks:
This extra water came almost exclusively from the sky, and a quick look at the rainfall figures shows exactly why we are quite literally ahead of the curve.
It’s the 12th of June, and every single rainfall station is ahead of where it should be for this time. Wynberg has already had an incredible 132% of the average rainfall for the whole month. As I mentioned on Saturday, we recorded almost 10% of our annual rainfall in just 36 hours, and the figures from the City bear that out. (Incidentally, the Wynberg figures are almost exactly (like, to the mm) what my rudimentary apparatus recorded in the back garden, which is a good indication that my apparatus is actually pretty decent.) (I’ve been saying that about my apparatus for years, though.)
Plenty more rain is due as well, with another three cold fronts forecast in the next nine days. My surprisingly accurate weather app is saying another 85mm over that period (compared with the exceptional 140mm we had last week). And while we’ll never forget just how scary the Cape Town drought was back in 2018, I do feel that the local population are getting a little fed up of the cold and damp.
The dams are sitting at their highest June levels since 2014. We do still need more though, with Theewaterskloof – which accounts for more than half the City’s water supply – still only sitting at 77%.
But this is a good news story, and we should be happy.
