Dry months wipe away wet start to winter

Rainfall in February and March was far below the annual average for those two months in Israel, despite a promising wet start to the winter.

Water authorities said that the dry months completely wiped out the effect of the storms that soaked the country during December and January, Israel Radio reported on Wednesday.

The level of the Sea of Galilee, which had been seriously depleted by several years of below-average precipitation, rose by just 23 centimeters during March, a far cry from the amounts seen in the preceding months.

Massive rainfall in early January flooded roads, including the Ayalon freeway, and held up trains in Tel Aviv. The rain was followed a week later by a snowstorm that blanketed parts of the country.

The inclement weather raised hopes for a bumper year of water replenishment as heavy rains and snow caused the level of the Sea of Galilee, one of Israel’s main sources of freshwater, to rise by 60 centimeters in less than a week.

However, the dearth of rain in the past two months has reduced the surplus, leaving the total rainfall for winter 2012-13 near the annual average.

Israel uses about 2 billion cubic meters of water a year, of which 600 million cubic meters comes from desalination and a further 400 million is recycled waste water used in agriculture. The rest comes from annual rainfall that rushes through rivers and streams into the Sea of Galilee and seeps into the coastal and mountain aquifers. In accordance with various agreements, Israel also provides 100 million cubic meters of water to the Palestinian Authority and a further 70 million cubic meters to Jordan.