Water levels in major dams across the state are starting to show the impact of moderate rains in catchments.
Northern Victoria Resource Manager, Mark Bailey, recently updated the 2018/19 seasonal determinations and outlooks.
Dr Bailey said Eildon has seen some really good inflows in the past two weeks.
He said the rainfall about a week ago produced a minor flood warning above Eildon on the Goulburn River.
That flow and the other increases in tributaries above the storage had contributed to some significant inflows averaging 10,000 to 15,000 megalitres a day for the past week.
He said that little parcels of rain, particularly in the North East and through the Ovens Valley, had resulted in relatively wet catchments.
“When we do receive rain it produces some benefits,” he said.
“Further west to the Campaspe and Loddon they are behind the eight ball and not producing such large inflows.
“It is producing some, but a lot of the rain is still going towards soil moisture stores,” he said.
Dr Bailey said there were releases although irrigators were no relying on those storages yet.
“However if stays dry for much longer we will see some higher releases,” he said.
Cairn Curran rose 300ML overnight Monday, after receding up to that point.
“That was on the basis of a couple of millimetres of rain overnight, that’s a good outcome,” Dr Bailey said.
Releases from Cairn Curran totaled 78ML/day and 35/ML/day from Tullaroop.
Dr Bailey said neither storage was allowing large volumes out of storage which was good for this time of year, contributing to filling the volumes – “albeit slowly”.
Dr Bailey said the current season in the Murray system most resembled the 2015/16 season while the situation in the Goulburn and Loddon systems was similar to 2008/09 – one of the drier seasons.
In the latest seasonal determinations for Northern Victoria, released August 15, there were increased allocations for a number of systems.
The Murray system moved from 49 per cent of high-reliability water shares (HRWS) to 59 per cent HRWS.
The Goulburn system and the Loddon system increased from 37 per cent HRWS to 47 per cent HRWS. The seasonal determination in the Broken system was 1 per cent HRWS.
The Bullarook system increases from 0 per cent HRWS to 19 per cent HRWS. The Campaspe system remained at 100 per cent HRWS.
“The fact that the catchments are responding to rain is encouraging. August and September are the months when most runoff occurs historically,” he said.
