Unmapped Dataworks

Free tools · For farmers

Farming in Buffalo City

Buffalo City: this season so far 84 mm of rain, 109% of normal; Bridle Drift Dam 101.2% full; farm workers at least R30.23 an hour.

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.

The season

Rain and heat against normal

Summer rain: most of the year’s rain normally falls from October to March.

This season so far October 2026

  • 84 mmRain109% of normal; normal 77 mm
  • 34.3 °CHottest day0 days of 35 °C or more
  • 9.8 °CColdest night
  • 18.7 °CMean temperature+1.3 °C on normal

Last season October 2025 to March 2026

  • 384 mmRain71% of normal; normal 540 mm
  • 38.6 °CHottest day3 days of 35 °C or more
  • 10.7 °CColdest night
  • 20.9 °CMean temperature+0.8 °C on normal

The last 12 months November 2025 to October 2026

  • 936 mmRain116% of normal; normal 804 mm
  • 36.4 °CHottest day2 days of 35 °C or more
  • 5.5 °CColdest night
  • 18.5 °CMean temperature+0.5 °C on normal

Normal is the 1991 to 2020 average of the same months. Newest month: October 2026. ERA5-Land runs about five days behind, so the month we are in is not counted yet. From Source: Rainfall and temperature by ward, release of 5 November 2026. Every day and every year of weather here

October 2026, from space

The newest month: greenness over the whole place (fields, veld and town), the drought index, fire and the year’s open water.

  • Greenness0.69 well above normalNormal 0.54. 98% of the place seen. greenness-by-ward · record municipality-BUF-2026, release 2026-11-12
  • DroughtNo drought index +1.24Steps from normal: 0 is normal, −1 is dry, −2 is very dry. drought-index · record municipality-BUF-2026, release 2026-11-12
  • Fire detections3 11% of the usual OctoberNormal 27. Burnt area for October 2026 not out yet (it comes some weeks after). wildfire-history · record municipality-BUF-2026, release 2026-11-12
  • Surface water (2025, yearly)20.2 km² 96% of the 1991 to 2020 averageNormal 21.1 km². 15.8 km² permanent; 89% of the place seen. surface-water-by-ward · record municipality-BUF, release 2026-11-12

The nearest dams

The dams in our data nearest the middle of Buffalo City, in a straight line. Nearest is not the same as the dam that supplies you: check with your water user association or scheme.

Levels: the Department of Water and Sanitation’s weekly State of Dams of 9 November 2026, by volume (dam-levels, release 2026-11-09.2). Where each dam is: the middle of its outline in our dams from space (dam-surface-from-space, release 2026-11-11; footprints from Digital Earth Africa, named from © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), so only the dams we see from space are counted.

The costs

Labour and electricity

Farm worker minimum wage

R30.23 an hour

From 1 March 2026, for every farm worker in South Africa: the national minimum wage’s rate for farm workers (Schedule 1 of the National Minimum Wage Act, 9 of 2018). About R1,360.35 for a 45-hour week. The old sectoral determination for farm workers was folded into the national minimum wage.

Government Gazette 54075, GN R. 7083 of 3 February 2026, from the Government Printing Works, page 4. Source: Bargaining-council minimum wages, release of 12 November 2026. Every farm worker rate

Electricity for farms from Buffalo City

Buffalo City’s tariffs for 2026/27, as NERSA approved them, have no tariff named for farms or agriculture. Farms here may be on a business tariff, or supplied by Eskom directly.

Buffalo City’s household tariffs

Not on this sheet yet

  • DieselNot heldDiesel’s price isn’t printed in the Government Gazette, and its wholesale price is only in the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources’ own workings, which can’t be republished under its terms. We show it once there is a source we may use.
  • Petrol and paraffinNot linked yetThe Gazette prints a price for each fuel zone, but the zones are set by magisterial district, and there is no clean link yet from a district to a municipality or ward.
  • Eskom’s farm tariffsNot in our data yetMany farms are supplied by Eskom directly, not by the municipality. Eskom’s own rural tariffs aren’t in our data yet, and Buffalo City’s own tariffs as NERSA approved them have no farm tariff.
  • Frost nightsNot in our data yetWe hold each month’s coldest night (in the season, above), not a count of nights below freezing.
  • Soil moistureNot in our data yetWe hold no soil moisture readings yet. Rain against normal and the drought index stand in for it.
  • Tolls to the nearest portNot in our data yetWe hold every toll plaza’s tariff, but not yet the route from a place to a port.

Each ward

Places in each ward: © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Every municipality · Everything we hold for Buffalo City

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.

Unmapped Dataworks