Rainfall in three days more than for all of March last year

Bureau of Meteorology figures show 61.8 millimetres of rain fell from Tuesday lunchtime to 5pm Thursday compared to only 54.8 mm falling in the whole of March 2019.

The rain spell was also on track to pass the March average rainfall figure of 66.4 mm recorded at the Orange Airport weather station since 1996.

On Thursday the rain started early and kept falling all day as Orange residents lapped up a third successive day of rain.

However with the rain forecast to ease on Friday ahead of a few days of sunshine it will not have a significant affect on the drought.

Orange City Council's figures show the level of water in our storage dams has risen for the third week in a row.

It is now up by 49 gigalitres over the three weeks and sits at 21.26 per cent capacity.

Mayor Cr Reg Kidd said it was due to the city's stormwater harvesting and receiving water from the Macquarie River pipeline.

"In February, Orange had 61 millimetres of rain, well below the February average of 74 mm," he said.

"What rain that fell, soaked away into dry paddocks. But those falls ran off the hard surfaces of the urban area and were captured by our stormwater harvesting system, adding 45 megalitres to our storage. That's about five days of water use.

"Despite recent rain events, the people of Orange know we're still in the middle of a drought.

"It's no time to be relaxing the fantastic water-saving commitment that our community has made."