Zimbabwe, 19 January 2016 – Water levels are rising steadily at Victoria Falls, but African Travel and Tourism Association (ATTA) chairman Ross Kennedy says, regardless, Victoria Falls is a year-round natural wonder.
“Like any piece of beautiful art, you can look at and admire at different times of the day, light, season, year, angles, and in this case from two countries, and appreciate different virtues and attributes of this incredible world wonder. High or low water, Victoria Falls offers utterly different splendour, majesty, raw beauty and power – and so perhaps should, in fact, be a TWICE in your lifetime experience – to see them both?” Mr Kennedy said.
A blog published by local tour operator Wild Horizons states: ‘The large fluctuation of the Zambezi River’s water levels is a part of a normal annual occurrence, with the minimum flow, which occurs in November, on average a tenth of the maximum flow in April. This phenomenon means that viewing the waterfall at different times of the year produces vastly different experiences … in high flow the entire length of the Falls is a thundering wall of falling water, whereas in low water the underlying structure can be seen and visibility is far better.“
The Zambezi River has been rising steadily since mid-November, with more water now flowing over the world’s largest waterfall, following a drier than normal year last year.
Rafting Association of Zimbabwe chairman Skinner Ndlovu said daily water level readings from a hydrological station gauge upstream of Victoria Falls, show the Zambezi River has been rising by 0.5cm a day since Christmas. “We are now just 15cm below the average water level of the Zambezi River at Victoria Falls at this time of the year,” Mr Ndlovu said.
“Low rainfall in the catchment area north of Victoria Falls during the 2014-2015 rainy season brought the water to its lowest level last year since 1995, which was a drier year,” Mr Ndlovu concluded.
