Rains to continue

Rains to continue Cooler weather is expected this week as the chances for showers and thundershowers over most of the country continue to look promising.

Yesterday, Sieglinde Somses, forecaster at the Namibia Meteorological Service said that a “high pressure system starts to ridge from the East, pushing more tropical moisture over the interior from Tuesday.”

Somses explained that this will improve the chances for rain over most of Namibia except the Northwest and the South for the coming week.

In addition, a “slight drop in temperatures is also expected for the week.”

Rainfall continued over many parts of the country into the weekend, with weather stations reporting 8.8mm at the Katima Mulilo on Friday, 8.9mm at Tsumeb and 7mm at Mariental.

Members of the public further reported rain in Windhoek on Saturday night, measuring up to 15mm in places.

On Thursday last week, Aroab, in the //Karas Region, reported 40.5mm of rainfall, and Rundu close to 20mm.

Nkurenkuru, in the Kavango West Region, reported 106mm on Wednesday last week.

The 6 January Hydrological Service Namibia flood bulletin reported continued good rains over the north east and eastern parts of the country, but noted that the water level for the Zambezi River at Katima Mulilo was at 0.78m on 4 January, which remains below normal for this time of the year.

Nevertheless, the bulletin stated that levels are expected to rise within the next weeks due to good rains received in the catchment areas over the past week.

Okavango River levels are increasing as a result of good rains in the catchment areas, and by Friday they remained above normal for the time of the year, measuring 5.22 at Rundu, having increased by 12 cm since Thursday.

The river level at Nkurenkuru increased by 17cm and was measured as 2.99m on Friday.



JANA-MARI SMITH