*3.2. The Growing Period Rainfall from 1985 to 2016*

The average rainfall for the growing period in Setsoto ranged from 540.71 mm to 632.38 mm with CV ranging from 21 to 29% (Table 3). Ficksburg had the highest rainfall during the growing period (1154.10 mm) while Marquard had the lowest rainfall (204.1 mm). The patterns of rainfall variations of the growing period were similar between Senekal and Marquard and Clocolan and Ficksburg with only observed differences of about 3% between them. The rainfall of the growing period accounts for approximately 88% of the annual rainfall (Table 3).


**Table 3.** Rainfall (mm) during the growing period October–April (mean, minimum, maximum, standard deviation and coefficient of variation) in Setsoto Municipality (1985–2016).

Mean annual rainfall over the Setsoto municipality ranged from 613 mm to 718 mm (Table 3). The summer months from October to April account for most of the annual rainfall in the municipality. The highest annual rainfall values observed were in Ficksburg with 1224 mm (Table 3). The lowest value ranged from 259 mm to 397 mm. Ficksburg had the highest mean annual rainfall (718.1 mm) followed by Clocolan (677.1 mm), while the lowest was recorded in Marquard (613.4 mm) followed by Senekal (645 mm) The CV of the annual rainfall was very high ranging from 34 to 45 (Table 3).
