Drought news

Apparently it rained a lot in Cape Town while we were away.
Well, ok. If you say so. We’ve been back for five days now and we haven’t seen any continuation of that alleged precipitation. And, looking at the forecast for the next five days, there’s only a small chance of a little bit of drizzle on Monday evening as far as I can see.

That said, some local websites are full of good news about our local big reservoir “doubling in capacity”.

For the record, this hasn’t happened. There may be a case for suggesting that the volume of water in Theewaterskloof has doubled from the worryingly low levels earlier in the year, but I have to tell you that the capacity has stayed exactly the same.

Semantics. I know. Sorry.
Pop me in Pendant’s Corner.

Meanwhile, another blog helpfully tells us how this whole sorry situation  came about (it didn’t rain):

And how the reservoir “fought back from the brink” (it rained):

It’s fascinating, incisive stuff. But I do appreciate that it’s all a bit technical, so don’t worry if you’re struggling to keep up.
That’s why we have experts for this sort of thing. And that’s why they get paid the big bucks.

Don’t get me wrong though. No matter how shitty the reporting, it is great that we’ve moved forward from what we saw when we went out there in February.

But drought isn’t a purely Capetonian thing. Take a look at Sheffield’s local reservoir, which also supplies Derby, Nottingham and Leicester:

It’s looking scarily similar to scenes we’ve seen here recently. In the distance, you can see one of the towers of the Derwent Dam, which should look like this:

There’s a lot more dam wall on show in that top image than there should be.

Sheffield isn’t quite at the point of water restrictions yet, although other places in the UK are about to be (and Northern Ireland was, but isn’t any more).

As for Cape Town, our Level 6b water restrictions are still in place. We’re out of the woods, but we still can’t afford to be complacent. And the city council are going to ensure we remember that by charging us a ridiculous amount for the water that we use.

But I can understand their caution in not cutting the restrictions just yet. When they do, water use is inevitably going to spike and it would be seen as a huge own goal to have to reinstate the restrictions once they had relaxed them.

Perhaps what they should do is to double the capacity of all our dams.
That would make a huge difference.

As long as it rained.

 

Still. Could be worse.

As in, this view is still. And it could be much, much worse.

Incoming from Mr A Contact. This gorgeous image of Ladybower Reservoir, just down the road from the family pile in Sheffield.

Gorgeous. A hint of frost on the fields in the (?)early morning sunlight. And that mirror in the middle is the water supply for Sheffield, Derby and Nottingham. It’s not quite “Antarctic Ice Shelf” pure, but it honestly can’t be far off.

Ja. Cape Town may be beautiful, but my home turf certainly has its moments too.

Thank you, Mr A Contact

Damn

Dam level figures released today for Cape Town’s ‘Big 6’ indicate that we’re 0.4% worse off than we were this time last week, teetering once again just above the magical 30% ‘CRITICAL‘ level, below which nothing actually changes.

Fullscreen capture 30-May-16 92448 PM.bmp

Oh then, to be in Sheffield (as I was a couple of weeks ago) where the dams are just about as full as they can be:

That total of 10,410,000,000 gallons is equal to 47,324,796,900 litres, in case you were wondering.

And what does a dam that’s 98% full look like? Like this.
And what does the other side of the wall look like when the dam is 100.1% full? Like this.

Damn View

Dad and I went for a walk in the Peak District this morning. Some fresh air and exercise to blow the cobwebs of the last few days away. We parked up at the delightfully named “Cutthroat Bridge” (map) and headed up onto Bamford Edge, where, despite the smoke from the nearby heather burning (sorry heather), we got some lovely views over the Ladybower Reservoir:

9km and a few hours later, all autumn-coloured out, and having traversed quite a lot of bogland and negotiated a whole barbed wire fence, we made it back to the car, upon arriving at which we almost instantly decided that a pint at the historic Strines Inn was called for. And who are we to ignore that sort of calling?

I have tacked the photos from the morning onto those already in this album. The Vernal/Autumnal Cross-Hemispherical Juxtaposition therein makes for some interesting viewing. See if you can see the join…