Week of rain leaves Cape Town’s dams just shy of 30% mark

How quickly things can change, Cape Town.

According to the City’s latest dam report, Cape Town’s six largest dams’ total storage now stands at 29.8%. That’s a gain of 5.8% in a single week.

To put that into perspective:

• At the current rate of consumption, that’s enough water to last Cape Town 98 days
• The city’s six largest dams now hold more than 52 000 additional megalitres, that’s 52-billion litres.
• In essence, just less than an entire Wemmershoek Dam’s worth of rainfall fell within the dams’ catchment areas last week
• Dam levels in the first week of June 2016 also stood at 29.8%
• In June 2015, dam levels stood at 50.1%, and in June 2014 at 78.7%

Back to the latest report though.

The largest dam in the system, the Theewaterskloof, gained 5.1% in a single week. In terms of volume, that’s an increase of 24 490 megalitres.

The Voëlvlei Dam is now 21.8% full, after seeing gains of 3.9% over the previous week.

Near Franschhoek, the Berg River Dam jumped from 43.3% to 51.8% during the week. It’s nearly as full as it was in 2015.

Impressive still, the Wemmershoek Dam is at its fullest point during June since 2014. It’s currently at 56.8% full, gaining 6.2% during the previous week.

And finally, the Steenbras duo round up the good news.

Steenbras Lower Dam increased its storage by 5.8% to 39.5%, while Steenbras Upper Dam gained 9.2% over the previous week. It’s now 69.2% full.

In terms of rainfall measurements, the City measured 90.6mm of rain over the Wemmershoek Dam catchment area, 35.1mm over the Theewaterskloof Dam, and 65.4mm over the Voëlvlei catchment area.

Although Cape Town is not yet beyond drought conditions, last week’s rainfall made a remarkable impact on the city’s reservoirs.

Consumption is also up slightly from last week’s 505-million litres per day figure. 530-million litres per day were drained from the City’s 14 dams according to Tuesday’s report.

Feature image: City of Cape Town