The one good thing about the torrential rain we've had in Mallorca over the last 10 days is that the Cúber and Es Gorg Blau reservoirs are almost full.
Capacity has gone up by 187%, from 3,500 to 10,043 cubic hectometres, which is equivalent to one third of a year’s water consumption in Palma.
According to Emaya, between November 8 to 17 the reservoirs reached 83.6% of their capacity, whereas before that they were only 29% full, which is very low for this time of year.
At Gorg Blau, the water level rose 10 metres, from 29% to 83.7% and at Cúber there was a 5-metre rise from 35% to 83.5%.
The new Gorg Blau meteorological station, which started operations on November 1, measured rainfall of 469 litres per m2 from November 8 to 17.
The increase in reserves occurred in parallel with an increase in extraction from 100 litres a second to 500.
La Vila, Mestre Pere and En Baster supply the Palma network with 500 litres of water per second, which is half of what the city needs.
With the reserves almost full, it’s possible to reduce the extraction of the aquifers and the acquisition of water from desalination plants.