There’s been a sharp jump in seasonal determinations in the Murray system – up 20 per cent to 90pc of high reliability water shares (HRWS).
The Goulburn system and the Loddon system both increased from 45 per cent to 60 per cent HRWS.
Northern Victorian Resource Manager Dr Mark Bailey said flows into all the major storages continued to increase the availability of water, across the region.
“Rainfall in the second half of August produced good flows into the storages, particularly at Lake Eildon and Hume Dam,” Dr Bailey said.
“The flows into Lake Eildon and Hume Dam during August were close to the long-term average.”
But he said flows into Broken, Loddon and Campaspe system storages had tracked below average.
The low-reliability water share (LRWS) seasonal determination in the Campaspe system increased from nought pc to seven per cent.
The Broken system increased from 15pc to 27pc HRWS.
The LRWS seasonal determination in the Bullarook system increased from 35pc to 100pc.
Customers in the Bullarook system also had access to 100pc cent HRWS.
Goulburn-Murray Water (GMW) managing director Pat Lennon said all those signs pointed to an optimistic outlook, for at least the next few months, for customers.
“This is particularly the case for irrigators right across the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District (GMID),” Mr Lennon said.
“In the weeks leading up to the re-opening of the irrigation season on August 15, and after experiencing dry mid-winter conditions, we were expecting to receive many requests from our farming customers wanting to place water orders.
“However with recent rainfall across the GMID – impacting positively on all our irrigation districts – many customers are able to delay dipping into their water allocations until later.”
In the wider northern Victorian region, which includes the high country water storages and western reservoirs managed by GMW, the total volume available to entitlement holders was about 14pc cent higher than this time last year.
Major storages were at healthy volumes with good inflows recorded in the preceding two weeks, including Lake Eildon, 69pc (up six pc) Dartmouth Dam, 82pc (up three pc, Hume Dam, 88pc (up 9pc) and the Waranga Basin, 82pc (up nine pc)
Dr Bailey said the positive figures were against the backdrop of an improved spring rainfall outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
“After favouring a dry spring from September to November, the Bureau is now forecasting no strong signal towards a wetter or a drier next three months,” Dr Bailey said.
“At this time last year, predictions for a very wet spring came to pass with some flooding, particularly in the north-east.”
“Conditions are more stable entering into spring this year,” Dr Bailey said.
“Meanwhile, a welcome turnaround on our dry winter has allowed us to have healthy water storage volumes. This benefits all our entitlement-holders.”
The next 2017/18 seasonal determination announcement including an updated outlook will be released on Friday September 15, 2017.
