The water storage for Tamworth’s main city supply has been climbing ever since the rain began with gusto in early June, although intermittently there for a while.

But since about mid-June, it’s been almost a daily deal that Chaffey’s high-level mark has been going up, at various rates of knots.

For the past couple of days, it’s been a creeping rise but when it reached 34.94per cent at 5pm on Friday, it gave Tamworth water bosses an extra dollop of hope that it would crack the magic 35 per cent capacity mark this weekend.

The new top-level measure will mean a reconsideration of Tamworth council water rules from sometime next week – because while they’ve held things on hold waiting to see if it will go past two management measures that control restrictions and use, they will have to officially make another decision on what happens next.

Under their drought management plan, Tamworth Regional Council is bound to change watering rules for outside when the dam rises above 30 per cent, and also when it rises above 35 per cent.

The dam has risen 5 per cent in a week and from 20 per cent at the start of June.

The 35 mark is the trigger for Level 2 rules to be introduced. Tamworth is on level 4 at the moment, which bans all outside use of town water.

TRC has been treading water this week, waiting to see how high Chaffey will go before making any decisions.

A record June rainfall in Tamworth – with 169mm making it the wettest June in 140 years – has delivered fresh flows and higher dam storages.

The flows in the Peel River, boosted by Dungowan Dam water that has been spilling since early this week, mean that Tamworth water users are actually not drawing down on the dam level, either.

The Calala water treatment plant is taking its licensed quota from the Peel flows and has been for about three weeks.

That means that Chaffey continues to boost its storage – a big bonus for water consumption figures after winter.