Cape Town successfully avoided Day Zero this year, but of course the battle is far from over.

Climate scientists say that it’s highly unlikely that the drought-stricken city’s catchment area will get the above average rainfall it needs. If there’s no above average rainfall this year, Day Zero could become a reality in 2019.

Yikes.

To avoid Day Zero next year and see Cape Town through the summer, experts Peter Johnston and Piotr Wolski from UCT’s Climate Analysis Group told News24 that the catchment area needs at least four consecutive months of above-average rainfall in 2018 to fill the dams sufficiently.

They’ve determined that the month of April will help them in answering the question of whether there will be a wetter than normal year.

In the same breath, however, Johnston said that they had not received all the official rainfall data for April, so they’re going by the provisional figures for now, which suggested that there had definitely not been “anything approaching above normal” rainfall to date.

Does this mean we bring on the icebergs, or should we hold off on that for now?

Going by this data alone, Johnston said:

This means that it is highly unlikely – only a 5% chance – that we will receive a substantially above normal total for the year.

Double yikes.

By the end of May, Johnston and Wolski will be making a full assessment. If they determine that the cumulative year’s rainfall was below average, it’s likely that Cape Town will have a drier than normal year.

TRIPLE YIKES.

Despite recent rainfalls this month, Cape Town residents have been keeping at their water-saving efforts. Water consumption in the city last week had reached a record low of 505 million litres a day (yay!), and rainfalls resulted in the dam levels rising slightly from 20% to 20,9%.

However, we’re still a long way from reaching the target consumption of 450 million litres a day set by the Department of Water and Sanitation.

C’mon, Cape Town – keep saving water each day to keep Day Zero at bay!

[source:news24]