The Eastern Cape’s biggest metro, Nelson Mandela Bay, has won a week’s grace after rain fell in the catchment areas of its two biggest dams — both of which are at dangerously low levels. It is estimated that parts of the metro will start running out of water by July unless the region gets more rain.
Despite good rain in Nelson Mandela Bay since Wednesday night, the combined levels of the metro’s dams still dropped by a combined 0.1%.
“After a wonderful week of rainfall, next week looks completely dry in our neck of the woods,” Garth Sampson from the SA Weather Service said.
He said dam levels had dropped by a combined 0.1%.
“The rise in dam levels is very disappointing, to say the least. However, considering that we have an average of a 0.46% drop per week, one can thus assume that there was in fact a real rise of 0.45%, but that has been used up already.
“Some hope is that there is still inflow into the dams, although minimal and the rate is decreasing by the hour. Although the inflow is disappointing, it did buy us another week [highlighted in yellow…
