Tamworth region weather: Copeton Dam near Inverell breaks historic records in wet year

The region's largest water source, Copeton Dam, had a whopping 767.4GL of water flow into it across September and October.

That's equivalent to about 306,960 Olympic swimming pools worth of water, marking the highest inflow ever in the history of the dam, according to Water NSW.

That amount alone would have been enough to fill Copeton Dam from empty to 56 per cent full in just two months.

The huge dam is near Inverell, and is part of the Gwydir Valley system.

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Downstream flooding has been significant over the past 12 months, a Water NSW spokesperson told the Leader.

The Pallamallawa gauge, which captures the dam spillage as well as just some of the downstream tributaries, had enough water go through it between November last year and November this year to fill Copeton Dam 2.3 times.

The dam hasn't seen such wet conditions in more than 70 years.

Since the storage's gates were finished in 1976, Copeton Dam has only spilled three times, in 1978, 1984 and 1998.

In the last 12 months alone, Copeton Dam has seen 13 spills.

Water NSW said they were somewhat separate spills as the authority barely had time to get the dam below full before the next rain event hit.

Between December 2021 and March 2022, irrigation releases saw Copeton Dam reach 92.5 per cent before it gradually refilled by June this year.

Spills continued and on September 5, 2022, water was rushing out the gates and Water NSW worked hard to minimise downstream impacts.

Towards the end of October, a significant spill occurred, and on October 22, a new spill record was reached with a peak rate of 150GL per day. The previous record was 90GL per day.

Other dams across the region have also spilled over during a very wet season and the third back-to-back La Nina phenomenon.

Chaffey Dam, near Tamworth, has been full for close to 18 months; Lake Keepit is lapping at its edges and Split Rock Dam is too.

Chaffey Dam was at 100.4 per cent on Tuesday afternoon, Lake Keepit was at 98.3 per cent and Split Rock Dam was at 100.2 per cent.

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