25 March 2011
Thomson rain couldn’t stem storage drop
The Thomson Dam, the system’s largest storage, received good rain in the past week, but it wasn’t enough to halt a 0.2% storage drop.
While the Thomson had 37mm, the other major catchments had virtually no rain as water use outstripped inflow, resulting in a net drop of 4.6 billion litres.
The average catchment rainfall (18mm) was still more than 30% above the long-term norm for the period (14mm).
Runoff continued to be strong. The total inflow into the major dams, 4.2 billion litres, was almost 50% above average (2.9 billion litres).
Storages typically drop by 0.4% a week over autumn, meaning they bucked the seasonal trend over the past week.
Water storages are now 53.7% (972.4 billion litres) full, compared with 34.3% (620.1 billion litres) at the same time last year – a difference of 352.3 billion litres.
Melburnians used an average of 143 litres of water each a day over the past week. This was 6 litres per day more than the previous week.
Information on water restrictions and tips on how to save water are available from the Office of Water or by contacting the government water retailers.
Stage 2 restrictions are currently in place.
Media Contact: Nicolas McGay +613 9235 2278 +61 (0)438 981 836