Contrasting SA weather

MANY would have watched anxiously the unusually heavy rains in May, wondering when they would see the sun again. They should also have noticed on the weather charts an interesting phenomenon – the contrasting halves of South Africa.

While the eastern parts of the country were drenched with rain and snow, the western half was hot and dry. KwaZulu-Natal was getting the winter rains instead of the Western Cape.

We are more fortunate than the Western Cape, which is the grip of a severe drought. Dam levels are so low that the city’s municipality has issued a warning to residents to use water only for cooking, drinking and washing.

What we fail to grasp is that while our human population keeps on increasing, requiring more resources, our rivers are not growing. We need to curb population growth and take care of our rivers if we wish to have sufficient water for our future.