THE TAMWORTH region has copped a soaking in the first half of this year, with some places recording close to double 2019's rainfall figures in just the first six months of 2020.
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According to data from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), Tamworth city had clocked a total of 500.6mm of rain in the airport gauge between January and June this year.
That's close to triple the recording for the same time period in 2019. In the first six months of last year, only 176.8 mm fell.
Now that more than 500mm has fallen in the first half of 2020, Tamworth has already surged past the 2019 annual rainfall total.
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Last year, the BoM gauge at the Tamworth airport only got 263.6mm of rain in the 12-month period.
Those numbers show Tamworth has nearly doubled last year's annual rainfall in just six months.
Heavy falls in February 2020 brought the Peel River gushing back to life and gurgling through the city.
In that month alone, BoM records show 202.2mm of rain was dumped on Tamworth.
But locals believe that figure is much higher, with residents recording larger figures in their backyard gauges after patchy storms across the city dumped more rain.
Despite greener grass and lively rivers, Chaffey Dam didn't get as much relief as other parts of the region.
The BoM weather station at the Head of the Peel near Nundle had clocked 692.6mm of rain by the end of June.
Close to a third of that amount of water - 203mm - fell during wet weather in February.
During the first six months of 2019, the Head of the Peel only got sprinkle of 289mm.
Chaffey Dam, Tamworth's main water supply, dwindled to just 12.85 per cent in January, and has hovered around 13 to 14 per cent since then.
On Friday, it had climbed to 15.2 per cent capacity - its highest level all year.
The dam is still critically low, and Tamworth remains on Level 5 water restrictions.
Higher rainfall totals in 2020 has also been a common trend in other towns across the New England North West, like Gunnedah and Armidale.
The BoM station at Gunnedah airport had gathered 402mm so far this year - that's more than double for the same period last year, when only 173.8mm of rain fell.
Armidale had an even bigger gap. The measuring station at Armidale airport recorded 692.6mm to the end of June 2020, almost three times the amount of rainfall compared to the first half of last year.