Sunday, October 31, 2010

Melbourne dams reach half capacity

ABC News (Australia): Melbourne's dams are half-full for the first time in four years as a result of the weekend's heavy rain. Melbourne Water says more than 40 millimetres of rain has fallen in the Upper Yarra catchment since yesterday morning, and 10 millimetres in the Thomson.

But spokesman Andrew McGuinnes says the gains need to be kept in perspective. "Obviously we're glad that the dams have reached the 50 per cent milestone, it's been a long-time coming, but we do have to keep it in perspective," he said. "Five years ago, dams were at 60 per cent, 15 years ago, they were virtually full.

"So you could argue that the amount of drought and climate change that we've been through in the past 15 years really has changed our perception of how much 50 per cent represents." Mr McGuinnes says the dams are still prone to dry spells….

Chaffey Dam in 2004, NSW, Australia (upstream from Tamworth on Peel River, a tributary of Namoi River). Shot by Felix Andrews (Floybix), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

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