Dams Fill as Floods Bring Vaal Dam 22,000 Olympic Pools-Worth of Water in 24 Hours

Heavy rains fell in Gauteng, North West and Mpumulanga provinces in South Africa yesterday bringing a welcome inflow of enough water to fill approximately 22,000 Olympic-sized pools to the Vaal Dam.

Gauteng Weather retweeted a message saying the Vaal Dam has received an “approximate inflow of 640 cumecs over past 24hrs” which “is equivalent to 22,000 Olympic swimming pools or 55 bn litres”.

The water level has increased with a big spike of 1,15% in the past 24 hours alone – from 44,51% yesterday to 45,66% today. The entire weekly average in December was 1,695%.

Hartbeespoort Dam, in North West, also received a lot of water. The photo below shows Port Provence at Estate d’Afrique on the Crocodile River as it feeds into Hartbeespoort Dam. (Photo by Nick Hall.)

Skukuza camp site in the Kruger National Park was flooded as the Sabie River banks overflowed. (See video below.) Their rainfall reportedly totalled 127,2mm this weekend.

In Mbombela, 109,6mm rainfall was recorded over the past two days.

The South African Weather Service issued several warnings Sunday morning for more heavy rain and floods, but rainfall is expected to lessen over the next 24 hours.

SA Weather Service said: “Heavy rain – leading to flash flooding” is expected in large parts of Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Meanwhile the Weather Service issued a warning of “extremely high veldfire danger conditions expected in Cape Metropole, Cape Winelands, West Coast District and W NC today.”

Sabie River, Kruger National Park yesterday

Click here to see more video footage of Skukuza campsite flooded.