The city of Cape Town announced on Monday that Day Zero has now been moved to July 9, due to a weekly drop in dam levels of only 0.5 percent.
According to a statement, the week's lower rate of consumption is attributed to water from Groenland reaching the Steenbras Upper Dam this week, which marginally increased the dam level, as well as to the further reduction in the city's weekly average demand to 523-million litres per day, compared to 1.13-billion litres per day in 2014.
"The Groenland water transfer and the reduction in our weekly average demand have had a dramatic impact on the Day Zero date, which is determined by assuming that the fortnightly trend of weekly dam storage will continue unchanged," Cape Town's executive deputy mayor Ian Neilson said.
Neilson urged residents to not ease up on their water-saving efforts, as the city has yet to reach the targeted 450-million litres per day collective usage target.
"We cannot afford to slow down when the estimated Day Zero date moves out, simply because we cannot accurately predict the volume of rainfall still to come, or when it will come," he said.
According to the city of Cape Town, here is latest water dashboard (http://coct.co/water-dashboard/):
Day Zero: July 9 (was June 4)
Dam levels: 24.4 percent (decline of 0.5 percent)
Total consumption: 523-million litres per day (73-million litres above the target of 450-million litres per day)
Level 6B restrictions continue, making it compulsory for Capetonians to use no more than 50 litres per person per day.