Weather News

Downpour does little for dams

The recent heavy rain has had little impact on the level of some of central New South Wales' water catchments.

Falls of up to 90 millimetres have been recorded in some parts of the central west in the past four days.

The capacity of Wyangala Dam near Cowra remains unchanged near 7.5 per cent.

Burrendong Dam near Wellington is still sitting at just under 12 per cent, despite more than 50mm of rain being recorded in the area.

State Water spokesman Tony Webber says much of the rain has fallen downstream of the storages.

"Unfortunately nothing terribly significant," Mr Webber said.

"Much like the last major rain episode that occurred there were good falls right across many areas but they didn't translate to considerable inflows to the two dams such as Wyangala and Burrendong and that seems to be the case this time as well unfortunately.

"Even though there were considerable falls in the Orange, Bathurst area which usually serves as a good catchment contributor but it doesn't appear to be the case according to our data.

"As far as we know our catchments are pretty much static. Obviously with the cooler weather and some minimal inflows the catchments have stayed steady but there are certainly not going to be any increases at all."

- ABC

© ABC 2010

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