Free tools · Measured from space

Greenness in City of Cape Town

October 2026: less green than a normal October in City of Cape Town (0.41 on the greenness scale; normal is 0.45). The satellite saw 96% of the area.

The greenness score (NDVI) is how green the land looks from space, from about 0 (bare ground, rock, water) to about 0.9 (dense green growth). It follows rain, season, crops and fire. A month’s figure is the mean over the whole place where the satellite saw the ground (clouds hide some).

October 2026

0.41On the greenness scale
0.45A normal October
−0.50Below normalSteps from normal: 0 is normal

The newest month seen over at least half the place. Digital Earth Africa publishes a month a few weeks after it ends.

The last twelve months against normal

Greenness each month, November 2025 to October 2026. Bars: mean NDVI. Lines: the 1984 to 2020 normal for the month.

Show the numbers

Greenness each month, November 2025 to October 2026.: every figure
When or what	Figure
November	NDVI 0.36, normal 0.39
December	NDVI 0.34, normal 0.35
January	NDVI 0.33, normal 0.35
February	NDVI 0.33, normal 0.34
March	NDVI 0.35, normal 0.34
April	NDVI 0.36, normal 0.36
May	NDVI 0.46, normal 0.40
June	NDVI 0.54, normal 0.47
July	NDVI 0.53, normal 0.51
August	NDVI 0.55, normal 0.53
September	NDVI 0.48, normal 0.52
October	NDVI 0.41, normal 0.45

Month	Greenness	Normal	Against normal	Seen	Second reading
November 2025	0.36	0.39	−0.43 near normal	96%	0.35
December 2025	0.34	0.35	−0.36 near normal	95%	0.31
January 2026	0.33	0.35	−0.36 near normal	96%	0.30
February 2026	0.33	0.34	−0.21 near normal	96%	0.30
March 2026	0.35	0.34	+0.05 near normal	95%	0.31
April 2026	0.36	0.36	−0.10 near normal	93%	0.32
May 2026	0.46	0.40	+0.58 above normal	94%	0.41
June 2026	0.54	0.47	+0.61 above normal	95%	0.47
July 2026	0.53	0.51	+0.12 near normal	93%	0.51
August 2026	0.55	0.53	+0.01 near normal	95%	0.49
September 2026	0.48	0.52	−0.57 below normal	96%	0.44
October 2026	0.41	0.45	−0.50 below normal	96%	0.38

Pale bars: seen over less than half the place, so less sure. The second reading is from a coarser European satellite product; it reads a little lower as a rule.

Every year since 2017

Greenness against normal, each year from 2017 to 2026. Up: greener than normal for the time of year. Down: less green. In standard deviations of the month’s 1984 to 2020 normal.

Show the numbers

Greenness against normal, each year from 2017 to 2026.: every figure
When or what	Figure
2017	−0.47 (12 months)
2018	−0.31 (12 months)
2019	−0.33 (12 months)
2020	−0.23 (12 months)
2021	−0.03 (12 months)
2022	−0.12 (12 months)
2023	+0.34 (12 months)
2024	−0.07 (12 months)
2025	−0.02 (12 months)
2026	−0.04 (10 months)

Year	Greenness	Against normal	Months
2026	0.43	−0.04	10
2025	0.42	−0.02	12
2024	0.42	−0.07	12
2023	0.45	+0.34	12
2022	0.41	−0.12	12
2021	0.42	−0.03	12
2020	0.41	−0.23	12
2019	0.40	−0.33	12
2018	0.41	−0.31	12
2017	0.39	−0.47	12

Greenest against normal: 2023 (+0.34). Least green: 2017 (−0.47). Our monthly record starts in January 2017; the normal reaches back to 1984. A year’s figure is the mean of its months seen over half the place.

A normal year here (1984 to 2020)

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
NDVI	0.35	0.34	0.34	0.36	0.40	0.47	0.51	0.53	0.52	0.45	0.39	0.35

Each ward

Everything we hold for City of Cape Town, on one page

Source

Measured from space: not a crop or grazing assessment.

How we worked this out

Two readings: Digital Earth Africa (Landsat and Sentinel-2, 30 m) and, as a check, Copernicus’s 300 m NDVI. Ward by ward they move together (median correlation 0.98). From 2022 Digital Earth Africa reads about 0.01 NDVI further above CLMS than it did in 2018 to 2021, so part of a recent “above normal” may be the sensors rather than the land; CLMS, read on its own, shows the same greener years (2022, 2025 and 2026).

The normal for each month is Digital Earth Africa’s 1984 to 2020 average from Landsat. Above or below normal is measured in standard deviations of that month over those years: half a standard deviation or more is “above” or “below”, one or more “well above” or “well below”.

What we changed: we averaged Digital Earth Africa’s monthly NDVI over each 2026 ward at 240 m (its own 8 by 8 averages of the 30 m pixels) and wards up to municipalities, districts and provinces by area; CLMS’s three 10-day NDVI images a month averaged the same way.

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.

Dataset: greenness by ward, release of 12 November 2026.