Lower-than-average rainfalls a concern, says water affairs department

The Department of Water and Sanitation said on Thursday that the current rainfalls were having “some slight impact on the country’s dam levels”, but more rain would be welcome to counter the effects of the drought.

Department spokesperson Sputnik Ratau said the current rains had raised dam levels by 0.2%, with the dam levels going from 53.5% last week to 53.7% on Wednesday.

However, the levels were a far cry from last year’s level which stood at 79.5% in the same month, Ratau added.

All the provinces, he said, except the Western Cape and Free State, showed a “slight increase in average dam levels over the last week”.

Lesotho’s Katse Dam experienced an increase of 1.9% to 65.7%, and in the Free State, Sterkfontein Dam rose from 81.1% to 88.3%.

Also in the Free State, the Gariep Dam experienced a water level drop from 53.3% to 52.6%, “largely due to Eskom generating power at the dam”.

Hazelmere in KwaZulu-Natal increased from 33.2% to 34.3%, but in the Western Cape, the Voelvlei Dam dropped from 22.2% to 20.8%.

Referring to KwaZulu-Natal’s current water crisis, Ratau said a 15% water restriction had been recommended for the province’s Umgeni system.

Ratau said dams in the North West increased from 46.4% to 51.1%, but that water levels in the Western Cape, which were at 36.6%, remained a concern. He pointed out that “it must be borne in mind that it is the dams in the winter rainfall area which are low”.

Ratau said the forecast for the next two to three months, according to the department’s forecasters, was “very bleak” as it was expected that there would be “below average rainfall expected through to May and above normal temperatures for the remainder of summer into winter”.

He said the forecasters indicated that El Niño was showing signs of weakening and expected the weather phenomenon causing drought conditions to be “toward near neutral in the winter”.

He said that three provinces, North West, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal could expect “a recurrence of the relatively good rain showers” and there would still be several “isolated heavy rain and thundershowers”.

Ratau said the warnings over “lower than normal rainfall over the next three months would mean that our recovery rate could still stretch beyond three years”.