WITH Metro Cebu experiencing heavy rains for the last several days, the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) expects water production to return to normal in two weeks.
Edna Inocando, MCWD information officer, said production at its two major water sources, the Buhisan Dam in Cebu City and the Jaclupan Dam in Talisay City, has gone up.
The Buhisan Dam produces 4,000 cubic meters of water per day, while MCWD’s weir dam in Jaclupan produces 28,000 cubic meters.
Before the start of the rainy season last June, the Buhisan Dam produced 3,800 cubic meters of water per day, while the Jaclupan facility produced 17,000 cubic meters.
Normal water production at the Buhisan Dam is 6,000 cubic meters per day, while in Jaclupan it’s 33,000 cubic meters.
“If the rains continue, hopefully, we can return to normal production in two weeks time,” Inocando told SunStar Cebu on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020.
However, Inocando said the increase in water production is not an assurance that there will be no more water shortage.
“Mao ra gyud gihapon considering nga kuwang gyud ang atong supply (It will still be a problem, considering there’s just not enough supply),” she said.
Inocando urged the public to continue conserving water since supply interruptions can happen anytime like when the MCWD is conducting main line leak repairs or if there’s a power outage.
“My advice is to store water because we don’t know when there are emergency interruptions,” she said in Cebuano.
According to records of the weather bureau Pagasa Mactan Station, Cebu received a total of 595.8 millimeters of rainfall from June 1 to Aug. 14, or 53 percent more compared to the rainfall volume for the same period last year, which was 389.8 millimeters.
“Our conversion is that every one millimeter of rain is equivalent to 5,000 drums or barrels of rain per square kilometer. In summary, we’ve received more rainfall this year from June to August, based on our records,” said Pagasa Mactan weather specialist Jhomer Eclarino in a mix of Cebuano and English.
In July 2019, the total daily recorded rainfall volume was 225.3 millimeters. In July this year, the total was 281 millimeters.
In August 2019, Pagasa Mactan logged a total daily rainfall volume of 76.7 millimeters. This is lower compared to the total recorded rainfall volume from Aug. 1 to 14 this year at 211.3 millimeters.
Pagasa officially announced the start of this year’s rainy season on June 12.
It earlier said the occurrence of thunderstorms, tropical depression Butchoy and the southwest monsoon (habagat) five days before the announcement brought significant amount of rains over western sections of Luzon and Visayas.
Eclarino said they logged 52.7 millimeters of rainfall from June 12 to June 30, 2020, but records for the entire month showed a total of 103.5 millimeters of rainfall in Cebu, or 15.7 millimeters more compared to the same period last year, which was 87.8 millimeters.
He said the highest rainfall volume since the onset of the rainy season was recorded on July 31 at 114.2 millimeters while the lowest rainfall volume was recorded on July 9 at 0.1 millimeter of rainfall. (JJL, WBS)