Both the Churchill and Kouga Dams are currently overflowing, and substantial rainfall has been recorded in the western dam catchments, an encouraging development.
Ongoing updates on dam levels will continue to be shared.
The Churchill Dam has a capacity of 35.240 Megalitres and on the 6th of May was 36.59% full with an extractable capacity of 29.09% or 10.251 Megalitres.
That equates to a massive inflow of 24.989 Megalitres in a 24 hour period – 1 041 208 litres per hour or 26 average sized pools per hour¹.
The Kouga Dam has a capacity of 125.910 Megalitres and on the 6th of May was 32.15% full with an extractable capacity of 28.85% or 36.325 Megalitres.
That equates to a massive inflow of 89.85 Megalitres in a 24 hour period – 3 732 708 litres per hour or 93 average sized pools per hour or 1.5 per minute².
The Dams Supplying NMB Ranked by Capacity:
- Loerie: 3,026 Megalitres
- Groendal: 11,638 Megalitres
- Churchill: 35,240 Megalitres
- Impofu: 105,757 Megalitres
- Kouga: 125,910 Megalitres
1. Using a common average of 40,000 liters per pool:
Total Pools: You could fill about 26 full pools.
Time to Fill: If this is the flow rate per hour we calculated earlier, you would be filling roughly one pool every 2 minutes and 18 seconds.
Olympic Comparison: For a larger sense of scale, a full Olympic-sized swimming pool holds about 2.5 million liters, so this volume would fill just over 40% of an Olympic pool.
2. Using a common average of 40,000 liters per pool:
Suburban Pools: This flow would fill approximately 93 pools every single hour. That is roughly 1.5 pools every minute.
Olympic Pools: You would fill an entire Olympic-sized swimming pool (2.5 million liters) in about 40 minutes.
Regional Context: At this rate, it would take about 393 hours (roughly 16 days) to completely empty the Churchill Dam (35,240 ML) if it were full and receiving no inflow.
