Question

Analysis of data about drought in Cape Town

Answer 1

Piotr Wolski, a water scientist at UCT, has used the latest rainfall and best available weather station data to compare the current drought to past ones.
The data shows that the drought over the water catchment area is the worst on record over one- and three-year periods. Rainfall in 2017 was especially poor.
This kind of drought is expected once in 300 years (90% confidence interval: 105 to 1,280 years).
The drought in the city itself is severe, but not the worst on record. Very little of Cape Town’s water is sourced from in the city itself.
There is a trend towards lower rainfall over the past 84 years in the catchment area. This may be due to human-caused climate change.