Free tools · For farmers

Farming where you are

This rain season against normal, heat, greenness, drought and fire, the nearest dams and how full they are, the farm worker minimum wage and the municipality’s farm electricity tariffs, on one sheet for every municipality and ward.

One sheet for farming here: how this rain season compares with normal, how hot it has been, how green the land is, drought, fire, the water on the ground and in the nearest dams, and what labour and electricity cost. Every figure comes from one of our live releases and names its record. Where we do not hold something, or may not show it, the sheet says so and why, rather than fill it in.

What it isn’t: not a forecast, not advice, and not readings from your own farm. Rain and temperature are modelled for the whole place (ERA5-Land, about 9 km), not a gauge on your land; greenness, fire and water are seen from space over the whole place, not only its fields.

On every sheet

What you will find

The seasonRain this season, last season and the last 12 months against the 1991 to 2020 normal; the hottest day, days of 35 °C or more, the coldest night and the mean temperature.
From spaceThe newest month’s greenness, drought index and fire, and the year’s open water.
The nearest damsHow full they are this week and a year ago.
The costsThe farm worker minimum wage from the Government Gazette, and the municipality’s farm electricity tariffs as NERSA approved them.
The gapsDiesel, petrol, Eskom’s farm tariffs, frost nights, soil moisture and tolls, each with why it isn’t here yet.

Find your municipality

Each municipality’s sheet lists its wards. Not sure which ward you are in? Find your ward.

Eastern Cape

Free State

Gauteng

KwaZulu-Natal

Limpopo

Mpumalanga

Northern Cape

North West

Western Cape

Sources

Modelled estimates from a weather reanalysis, averaged over the whole place: not readings from a weather station, and not a forecast. The weather model runs about five days behind the weather, so the newest day here is usually five to twelve days ago.

Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use that may be made of the Copernicus information or data it contains. Muñoz Sabater, J. (2019): ERA5-Land hourly data from 1950 to present, and ERA5-Land monthly averaged data from 1950 to present. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS). DOI 10.24381/cds.e2161bac and 10.24381/cds.68d2bb30. ERA5-Land on the Climate Data Store, under CC BY 4.0.

What we changed: we cut ERA5-Land to South Africa, averaged its 9 km grid cells over each ward, municipality, district and province by the area of the place in each cell (MDB boundaries, 2026), took each day’s high and low from 16 of its hourly values, added up days into months, and averaged 1991 to 2020 for the normals.

Greenness: NDVI Anomaly and NDVI Climatology, Digital Earth Africa (CC BY 4.0), modified; Landsat imagery courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey; contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2017 to 2026. Second reading: generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information (NDVI 300 m, version 3), modified.

Drought: Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 1950 to 2026 (ERA5-Land, for rain; ERA5-Drought, for SPEI). Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use that may be made of the Copernicus information or data it contains. Greenness: NDVI Anomaly, Digital Earth Africa (CC BY 4.0), modified; Landsat imagery courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey; contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2017 to 2026.

Fire: Fire detections: we acknowledge the use of data and/or imagery from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), part of NASA’s LANCE (VIIRS 375 m, S-NPP and NOAA-20). Burnt area: generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information (Burnt Area 300 m version 4, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34), modified; this does not mean the European Union endorses us.

Surface water: Water Observations from Space, Digital Earth Africa (CC BY 4.0), modified (counted over each 2026 place by Unmapped). Landsat imagery courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Dam levels: the Department of Water and Sanitation’s weekly State of Dams. Wages: the Government Gazette, from the Government Printing Works. Electricity tariffs: NERSA’s tariff decisions for 2026/27. Places: the Municipal Demarcation Board’s 2026 boundaries.