Melbourne Water

Weekly Water Report

9 February 2012

Storage drop in line with summer pattern

Water storages have continued their month-long decline, shedding 6 billion litres on the back of little rain and high consumption.

The decrease represents 0.4% of capacity – which is equal to the average weekly summer storage drop.

The four major catchments had a relatively dry week, receiving between 4 and 9 mm of rain, with the average being 5.3 mm.

This was 67.8 % below the long-term average for the period of 16.6 mm.

Consequently, streamflow was also down but closer to average thanks to good rain from the previous week.

The 3.8 billion litres of streamflow was 3.7% below the 30-year average for the period (3.9 billion litres).

Water storages are now 64.8% (1,175 billion litres) full, compared with 54.1% (980 billion litres) at the same time last year – a difference of 195 billion litres.

Household water use also dropped slightly, but still remained high.

Melburnians used an average of 186 litres of water each a day - 10 litres per day less than the previous week.

Information on water restrictions and tips on how to save water are available from water.vic.gov.au or by contacting the government water retailers.

Stage 1 restrictions are currently in place.

Daily residential water use for Melbourne

   PREVIOUS WEEKS
   CURRENT WEEK

All figures include non-metropolitan supply for Western Water (supplied since March 2000), which are not included in annual Melbourne metropolitan consumption figures.

Melbourne's water storages

View interactive storage graph for 1997-2012 (opens in a new window)

   2009 - 10     2010 - 11     2011 - 12  
100% capacity = 1,812,175 ML
NB: Prior to 1 July 2010, 100% capacity = 1,810,500 ML

Total system storage (as of 9 February 2012)

Reservoir	Capacity at full supply (ML)	Current Volume (ML)	% Full
Thomson	1,068,000	582,306	54.5%
Cardinia	286,911	204,353	71.2%
Upper Yarra	200,579	164,169	81.8%
Sugarloaf	96,253	94,566	98.2%
Silvan	40,445	35,962	88.9%
Tarago	37,580	21,757	57.9%
Yan Yean	30,266	26,642	88.0%
Greenvale	26,839	20,643	76.9%
Maroondah	22,179	21,710	97.9%
O'Shannassy	3,123	2,702	86.5%
Total	1,812,175	1,174,810	64.8%

Rainfall recorded at the reservoirs

Catchment	3 Feb - 9 Feb 2012	Average for the period*	Variation	3 Feb - 9 Feb 2011
Thomson	5 mm	18 mm	72.2% below	68.6 mm
Upper Yarra	4 mm	14.9 mm	73.2% below	85.4 mm
O'Shannassy	9 mm	15.4 mm	41.6% below	106.6 mm
Maroondah	6.8 mm	16.9 mm	59.8% below	100.4 mm

* Average (30 year mean 1982-2011)

Stream flow for the major catchments

Catchment	3 Feb - 9 Feb 2012	Average for the period*	Variation	3 Feb - 9 Feb 2011
Thomson	1125 ML	1340 ML	16.0% below	3358 ML
Upper Yarra	513 ML	820 ML	37.4% below	2159 ML
O'Shannassy	1087 ML	910 ML	19.5% above	2874 ML
Maroondah	1049 ML	850 ML	23.4% above	2181 ML
Total	3774 ML	3920 ML	3.7% below	10572 ML

* Average (30 year mean 1982-2011)

Note: These results are preliminary and are validated at the end of the month.

Yarra Catchment
Report for period 2 February - 8 February 2012 (inclusive):

Current seven day rolling average flows for:

• Yarra River @ Yarra Glen = 551.4 ML/day (up 1.8 ML/day from the previous week)
• Yarra River @ Warrandyte = 387.8 ML/day (up 65.3 ML/day from the previous week)
• Little Yarra River @ Yarra Junction = 67.2 ML/day (down 2.7 ML/day from the previous week)
• Woori Yallock Creek @ Yellingbo = 83.5 ML/day (up 0.2 ML/day from the previous week)

Total rainfall for February at:

• Upper Yarra Reservoir is 18.8 mm (long-term February average is 46.9 mm)
• Silvan Reservoir is 31 mm (long-term February average is 49.7 mm)

Maribyrnong Catchment
Report for period 2 February - 8 February 2012 (inclusive):

Rosslyne Reservoir
Melbourne Water's Capacity Share of the storage as at 6 February 2012 was 1703 Megalitres (ML)

• Current release from Rosslyne (as at 6 February 2012) to meet bulk entitlement demands = 6.17 ML/day

Current seven day rolling average flows for:

• Jacksons Creek @ Sunbury = 2 ML/day (down 1.8 ML/day from the previous week)
• Deep Creek @ Bulla = 0 ML/day (no change from the previous week)
• Maribyrnong River @ Keilor (Brimbank Park) = 1.4 ML/day (down 1.9 ML/day from the previous week)

Total rainfall for February at:

• Rosslyne Reservoir is 2.2 mm (long-term February average is 42.3 mm)

Note: Passing flows at Keilor, as per the bulk entitlement agreement, require 5.0 ML/day or natural, whichever is the lesser, to be passed at Keilor. Natural flows are based on flows at Deep Ck @ Bulla gauging station.

View our archived weekly water updates.

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