Melbourne Water has reported that Melbourne’s water storages have had a prosperous June, banking 90 billion litres of water and topping 70% capacity for the first time since January 1998.

 

The increase resulted from a combination of above-average rainfall and soaked catchments, and the legacy of almost two years of good rain and stream flow.

 

The Thomson Dam reaped the benefits of heavy rainfall across East Gippsland, increasing capacity by 6% (63.8 billion litres) in June. This is in contrast to the same time three years ago, when the Thomson had dropped to 16.2% of capacity.

 

Stream flow into Thomson in June was 65.7 billion litres, which is the highest since September 1993 (72.9 billion litres).

 

Melbourne Water Manager Water Supply, John Woodland, said the Thomson gain had been instrumental in the overall increase of Melbourne’s storages.

 

“The Thomson is by far our biggest dam, and represents the majority of our storage capacity,” said Mr Woodland.

 

“We’ve seen really heavy rain throughout June, a lot of which has fallen over the Thomson’s catchment. Coupled with the fact that catchments are already soaked from strong rainfall over the past 18 months, this means that most of the rain we’re getting is being converted into gains for our storages.”

 

Mr Woodland said that even though storages typically rose in June, this year’s performance had more than doubled the average monthly increase.

 

“Long-term averages tell us that storages usually rise by 2% per month in winter, but this month we’ve already seen a gain of 5%,” said Mr Woodland.

 

“That’s around three months of drinking water for Melbourne, which is a terrific result.”

 

Across the system, stream flow into the dams over the past month was 206% above-average, while rainfall was 82% above average.

 

Melbourne’s average total daily consumption (937 million litres) was only slightly higher than for the same time last year (927 million litres).