Northern Victoria was hit by rainfall between 60 and 100 mm on Wednesday, October 4 which followed a relatively dry August and September (15mm in Shepparton).
But with the storages close to full, people bordering the rivers were worried about a repeat of last October’s floods, which washed out some crops and damaged businesses dependent on the river.
Goulburn-Murray Water boosted releases from Lake Eildon to 17,000 Ml/day last week, sparking concerns for some downstream landholders.
But concerns were eased when G-MW reduced its expected release levels and no further rain was received in the catchments.
Eildon reached 100.6 per cent of capacity on Friday, October 6.
When a storage rises above 100 per cent, G-MW describes this as ‘surcharging’. According to the authority, storages like Lake Eildon are designed to surcharge temporarily after large rain events.
“As a gated storage, it reaches 100 per cent when the water is at the full supply level, however, the storage infrastructure means water can be held above this level,” a statement from G-MW said.
“This helps mitigate inflows, particularly when inflows are very high. The amount a storage can surcharge depends on various factors, such as the infrastructure, the scale of the flood event, and the rate of inflows.”
Advanced Ag agronomist Tony Kelly said the rain had come at an opportune time for spring crops.
Most of the crops appeared to have stood up well to the heavy falls early last week.
“The ground was starting to dry out, so the rain came just in time,” Mr Kelly said.
He said cropping farmers would not like to see further heavy falls, nor a frost.
“I was talking to someone at Echuca the other day and they had received about 60mm and their crop was looking good.”
Higher falls were received in places like Benalla.
“There is good potential for cereals. They got over the wet period in June,” Mr Kelly said.
“If anything could bring us undone, it would be frosts or a big flood.”
Farmers cutting silage and hay have had some breaks in the weather to get the fodder cured.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, the next week should be largely clear, except for a 40 per cent chance of rain on Saturday.
The Eildon reservoir was at 100.5 per cent of capacity on Sunday.
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