Some rain is expected to fall over the central north and eastern parts of Namibia between today and leading into the weekend, which could bring sighs of relief to already worried Namibians, especially farmers.
Most parts of Namibia remain dry as no rains have been recorded yet, while some areas received some relatively good showers towards the end of 2021. Temperatures have also been consistently high across the country.
Many farmers remain hopeful for good rains as their fields stay uncultivated - a situation most fear as droughts have rocked Namibia consecutively over the past few years, killing thousands of livestock and depriving people of sufficient food.
The Namibia Meteorological Services’ forecaster Odillo Kgobetsi yesterday said the country can expect moisture over the interior.
He reported that more rain is expected over parts of Kavango and Zambezi as well as the eastern parts of Otjozondjupa by today.
“We should also expect further rains to set in over the central-northern parts of Otjozondjupa, extending to the eastern parts of Namibia.”
For the far-northern parts of Namibia, areas such as Omuthiya and Eenhana can also expect some rain as storms become heavy.
By Thursday, severe storms can be expected mainly in Otjozondjupa around Okamatapati.
“A warning or advisory has already been send out to those areas where we are expecting more than 15mm rain within 24 hours on Thursday. We should expect a trend of moisture and rains to set in over the central and south-eastern parts of Namibia as we enter the weekend. It’s a good development, and we are seeing that rains are starting to come through. We are also expecting more storms to occur over the weekend,” he predicted.
The Zambezi region is one of the areas that received some good rains over the past few weeks.
In an interview yesterday, Kabbe South constituency councillor John Likando confirmed the good rains in the region, although it’s delayed.
“We received showers over the past two weeks. Ploughing has commenced. The rains came late, hence people are only ploughing now. The grazing pastures have improved, and livestock have enough to graze on. The Zambezi River is quite low because rains came late,” Likando added.
According to him, they foresee drought in most parts of the Zambezi Region due to the late rains.
NamWater’s weekly dam bulletin released on Monday shows most dam levels still have water.
These dams include Swakoppoort, showing 76.2%; Von Bach 47%; Omatako 43.2%; Goreangab 99.2%; Daan Viljoen 52.4%; Hardap 47.4%; Naute 81.2%; Oanob 76.1%; Olushandja 11.6%; Friedenau 76.9%; with the Neckartal Dam showing that no data was received by Monday.
–anakale@nepc.com.na