How this works

Dam levels

Every morning and afternoon we read the City of Cape Town's dam levels page, which has a daily table and a weekly table. If a table doesn't add up, we keep the last good reading rather than show a wrong one, and the date beside the figure tells you how old it is.

History from 2000 to January 2026 comes from the City's open data portal. Most of 2026 before October comes from archived copies of the City's page and weekly figures from City reports, so this year's line has gaps.

Normal for this date

Normal is the average level on the same date in every year since 2001. The shaded range on the chart is the middle half of those years.

We call a reading "below normal" when it is more than 5 points under that average, and "well below normal" past 15 points. This is our reading, not the City's.

Level colours

The colour of a level shows how full it is: blue from 70%, sky blue from 50% to 70% (a typical end of summer), amber from 30% to 50% (since 2012, only seen in drought years) and red under 30% (only reached in the Day Zero years, 2016 to 2018). It always comes with a word: healthy, fair, low or very low.

Outlook

The outlook takes today's level and applies how much the dams rose or fell over the rest of the season in each earlier year. It shows the middle result and the middle half of the range.

It knows nothing about this year's rain or use, so treat it as a rough guide. It is not a City forecast.

Restrictions

The restriction level is the City's, copied from its announcements with a link to the source. We never work it out from dam levels.

Rain

Rain is the daily total for central Cape Town from Open-Meteo, from 2000. Most dam water falls in the mountain catchments to the east, so city rain is a guide to the season rather than a measure of inflow.

Use (TapOff)

City-wide use and the target come from the City's weekly water dashboard, entered each week.