Israel got only 70% of average precipitation this year

Country badly needs more than the annual norm, stresses Water Authority.

By SHARON UDASIN
Rain drops 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Rain drops 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
While there are slightly better results at the conclusion of this year’s rainy season compared to that of last year, water levels are still markedly low as the country faces its seventh consecutive year of drought.
“We must conserve water, we must save water as a way of life, very seriously for this year and the next year,” said Water Authority spokesman Uri Schor on Monday. “Otherwise we will have a problem.”
This year, the North received much more water than the center and the south, reaching a bit more than 90 percent of Israel’s average rainfall, according to Schor, but he cautioned that this is not worthy of celebration.
“You must take into consideration that in Israel the demand for water is bigger than what comes in on average by rainfall,” Schor said. “Therefore, even if you reach 100% it’s not enough.”
To be 100% average, Schor explained, is not sufficient, particularly because this is the seventh consecutive year in which we are “taking more water than we get.”
Overall, including the South and Center, the country achieved an accumulation of only 70% of average, he said.
Meanwhile, despite heavy rains in the past few months that have brought water levels in the Kinneret above the red line, Schor warned that “we are missing almost four meters of water” from the reservoir.
“Lake Kinneret, for instance, is now a bit higher than the red bottom line, but already in the coming May, more or less, we will go down below the bottom red line again and be there all the summer,” Schor said.
“Toward the end of the summer we are supposed to come close to the black line and no one knows how the next winter will be.”