Auckland water crisis: The rain's helping but we're still in trouble

It might have been a wet week but the Auckland water crisis is far from being averted, with storage dams just over half full.

Despite a significant 48.5mm of rain bucketing down on the Waitakere Ranges and 34.5mm on the Hunua Ranges in the past seven days, Watercare says the dams are still well short of desired levels.

The dams in the south and west of the city are sitting at 57.4 per cent full.
They are usually topped up to 80.7 per cent at this time of year.

The good news is there's more rain forecast for the coming week to chip away at the water storage issues.

WeatherWatch.co.nz said the rain this week would be helpful, but the totals didn't look huge for all of the Auckland region, due to the blocking nature of the Coromandel Ranges.

"There will be a large low in the Tasman Sea and this will put rain and showers later this week in areas that still are in a significant 18-month rainfall deficit," said head forecaster Philip Duncan.

"The Hunua Ranges may see 25mm later this week and weekend and if the rain stalls then those totals may possibly double, but it's not locked in".

He said with clouds having to first move over the Coromandel Peninsula, the rain would be enough to help push this back this week's average rainfall back into "normal" territory.

But it wouldn't likely have a giant impact on the storage facilities - meaning Aucklanders would need to keep conserving water for many weeks - even months - to come.

"The Hunua Ranges are near some good rainfall totals this week, but the Coromandel Ranges may not be Auckland's friend here, taking the bulk of the rain for itself to some degree," he said.

Meanwhile, Aucklanders are continuing to do their bit saving water, meeting the July target of 409 million litres or less a day.

Watercare said across the region 385 million litres of water was used yesterday while the weekly average stood at 394 million litres.