Weatherzone says there’s a 90 per cent chance that 10-20mm of rain will fall later today and also on Sunday in the Coffs Harbour region, while tomorrow the forecast is for 5-10mm.

Unfortunately that will be the majority of the rain for the next seven days, as the weather is expected to return to sunshine on Monday with no rain predicted for the remainder of the week.

At council’s meeting on Wednesday, Deputy General Manager Operations Matt Fanning reported that the daily flow of the Bellinger River, our main water source, was now at 38 megalitres and was falling by 1ML per day (1ML is about half an Olympic sized swimming pool worth of water).

Mr Fanning said if the weather continues predominantly dry and warm, we may have to move to Level 2 water restrictions within one or two weeks, and potentially Level 3 within four weeks.

Currently Bellingen Shire is on Level 1.

Related: From the Mayor’s desk – Water restrictions