Heavy rainfall along the coastal areas of Sydney and the Illawarra has failed to make a significant impact on dam levels in the Sydney catchment.  Storage levels have risen overall by 0.3 per cent, meaning the available storage in reservoirs is now 38.2 per cent.

The Avon, which supplies Wollongong, has reached 50 per cent, while the Warragamba and the Woronora are at 34 per cent.  The Sydney Catchment Authority's Alison White says there was a lot of rain this week, but it largely fell in the wrong place.  "It was very much a coastal front that came through over the last few days," she said.  "The rainfall was coming in from the ocean and didn't penetrate very far inland, and so while it's been a deluge in the eastern suburbs of Sydney and around the Illawarra, that hasn't got very far inland.  "Therefore it's only our more coastal catchments that have picked up most of that rainfall."