Weekly water update 31 May 2018

Note: 1 billion litres = approx. 400 Olympic swimming pools.  Please note these figures are rounded (except for rainfall) to the nearest whole number.

Water use

Average daily water use over the last week was 690 million litres, which was above the forecast of 661 million litres.  Since 1 July 2017 we have used 267 billion litres of water, which is 7 billion litres below the 274 billion litres we had forecast.

Dam levels

Over the last seven days, Perth’s dam storage levels have increased (by about 3 billion litres) from 135 billion litres to 138 billion litres of usable storage. Perth’s dams store water from three different sources… groundwater and desalinated seawater transferred from treatment plants as well as streamflow (produced by rainfall).

Sprinkler roster compliance

The two-day-per week sprinkler roster now applies, and our inspectors issued 50 warnings and 46 fines last week.  Since 1 January 2018 we have taken a total of 3731 actions (warnings + fines) compared with 3897 actions for the same period in 2017.

Rainfall

Perth has received 67.4mm of rainfall so far this May - the median rainfall in Perth for May is 86.8mm. Since 1 January 2018, Perth has received 197.2mm of rainfall – cumulative median rainfall from January to May is 133.9mm.

Climate outlook overview

The Bureau of Meteorology has released its “Climate and Water Outlook June to August 2019” today.

For this winter outlook there is equal likelihood of above median (395mm) rainfall; with likely above median temperatures (maximum median 18.7 degrees, minimum median 10.1 degrees) from June to August for Perth.

Low rainfall and high temperatures have led to below or very much below average soil moisture south west of Western Australia in May 2018.   The rainfall that does fall will largely soak into dry soils and as a result, the Bureau of Meteorology predicts May to July low flows are likely to continue across much of the south of Australia.