Cape Town – The average dam level for the Western Cape province is currently 66.1%, compared to 65.7% last year.
This was due some much-needed rain showers hitting the drought-stricken Karoo region of the province at the weekend.
The bulk of the rain fell in the Nelspoort and Murraysburg areas, where some farms reported 40mm of rain, said Anton Bredell, MEC for Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning.
“In Beaufort-West, between 12mm and 14mm was reported. However, overall the rain provided some slight relief in most regions only and indeed the situation in the south-western region of the Central Karoo remains quite serious despite the recent rainfall.”
Bredell said the regions around Merweville, Leeu-Gamka and Prins Albert continue to be severely affected by the ongoing drought, with the agricultural sector in these regions of particular concern.
“In addition, the early indications are that the summer rainfall for the region may only kick in later in the year. The province and our national partners continue to monitor and provide support where we can.”
Dams supplying Cape Town are currently sitting at 81.9% of storage capacity, down 0.4% from last week. Collective water consumption for last week was 616 million litres/day (up from 587 million litres/day).
Although consumption for last week increased quite significantly, by 29 million litres/day, the city remains within its daily allocation of 650 million litres/day.
"It remains to be seen to what degree consumption will increase over the summer months (when consumption traditionally increases significantly), and as such the City is calling on residents to look out for these updates so they can react appropriately as we transition into hotter weather," the City said.
Major dams30/9/2019Previous week% 2018Berg River99.499.5100.3Steenbras Lower97.899.292.7Steenbras Upper86.890.091.0Theewaterskloof72.172.557.8Voëlvlei88.788.894.5Wemmershoek92.191.695.6Total Stored Ml735 201738 870679 240% Storage81.982.375.6