Years of anxiously watching dam levels fall are over for Melburnians, with water storages back up to two-thirds full.
After dropping to a record low of 25 per cent in June 2009, two and a half years of good rain has brought the city’s dams back up to 66.8 per cent full.
They started the year at 53.7 per cent full and kept rising when 345 millimetres, the heaviest summer rains since 1993-94, soaked catchments.
The rains continued and the catchments had their wettest year in more than three decades, soaking up 1365mm, the highest annual total since joint dam records began in 1975 and 28 per cent above the long term average.
With a wet end to 2011 ensuring levels continued to rise, rather than fall as they usually do at the end of the year, the dams’ capacities have increased by 13 per cent for the year.
The rise equates to 237 billion litres, equivalent to an eight month water supply for Melbourne.
Melbourne Water asset planning general manager Paul Pretto said the highlight of the year was seeing the Thomson Dam fill to 54.9 per cent of its capacity.
It has recovered from its record low of 16.2 per cent in July 2009, following a decade of drought.
“The Thomson is our drought reserve, designed to be built up in wet years and drawn down in dry times,” Dr Pretto said in a statement.
“So it was great to see it recovering from the below average inflows over the past decade and building Melbourne’s water security.”
He challenged people to continue their water saving efforts to help storages stay around 60 per cent through summer.
Total water consumption across Melbourne fell 0.6 per cent in 2011 compared to 2010.
Stage one water restrictions are in place.
