From extremely dry to extremely wet - what a change in just a few months in southern Africa

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 11:14:01 +0200
RSS-News, Teaser

After a record-breaking drought of at least 2 years in the Cuvelai-Cunene catchments in northern Namibia and southern Angola, the 2024/25 rainy season started late around Christmas, but then turned to one of the wettest since 2010/11. This also pertains to most of Namibia such that several dams in the country were filled at 100% capacity and others showed a filling level of around 2/3 or more at the end of the 2024/25 rainy season. This more or less ended the drought situation in the country. Of particular note is the monthly total of 306 mm (401% of the normal) in Windhoek, but also 19 mm at the hyper-arid Walvis Bay station which usually receives a March mean of 1 mm.

The Co-HYDIM-SA team visited the Cuvelai area in early October 2024, at the peak of the drought situation, and just after the rains in early April.