One of Victoria's biggest drinking water storages is spilling for the first time in four years after repeated heavy rainfall over a soggy catchment.
Lake Eppalock, on the Campaspe River near Bendigo, started spilling on Monday morning and is likely to do so for at least another week.
Water levels in the man-made lake built in the early 1960s have surged over recent weeks, with the storage receiving more than double its average September inflows last month.
The dam is one of eight managed by Goulburn-Murray Water that are spilling. Others include Lake Nillahcootie, near Mansfield; Laanecoorie Reservoir, west of Bendigo; and Tullaroop Reservoir, near Maryborough.
Lake Eppalock provides drinking water for Bendigo, Ballarat and Heathcote, irrigation water for agriculture and stock, and domestic water for rural properties.
The recent wet weather in western Victoria has taken a toll on many communities, leaving residents worried about rising floodwaters.
Floodwaters have covered paddocks, washed fences away, flooded and damaged roads, and threatened homes.
But an upside from the rainfall has been that dams, both on farms and those providing drinking water, have been replenished.
"The dams are there for water resources security, so it would indicate that for at least the next two years, in the majority of our areas, we're going to have good water resources availability," said Mark Bailey, manager water resources for Goulburn-Murray Water.
Also in the north-west, four of the reservoirs managed by Grampians-Wimmera-Mallee Water are full. The water corporation's biggest dam, Rocklands Reservoir near the Grampians, is 39 per cent full and rising.
The two biggest dams in Goulburn-Murray Water's network – Dartmouth Dam (65.8 per cent full) and Lake Eildon (68.1 per cent) in the state's north-east – are climbing but well below capacity, reflecting the fact most of the above-average rainfall has been in the state's west.
Lake Eildon, an important tourist drawcard and source of irrigation water, is expected to keep rising for weeks.
"We expect it to continue to go up, certainly over the next month at least," Dr Bailey said. "How close we get to capacity is a bit difficult to tell at this stage, but we don't expect it to fill to 100 per cent at this point."
Richard Anderson, chairman of the Victorian Farmers Federation's water council, said the healthy volume of water in storage had helped lower the price of temporary water, and helped farmers plan ahead.
"It's going to mean that there will be water in storage for next year's allocations already; I'm talking about the 17-18 season," he said. "It means you can do your planning. You know what's there; you can do your planning going into the next season."
It could mean some farmers might grow summer crops such as sorghum, he said.