There was little complaining going on this past weekend, however, as the beneficial rains were a welcome sight for water supplies throughout the drought-stricken North Carolina Piedmont.

While the City of Roxboro has not reached dangerously-low levels for water supply as many neighboring municipalities have, the nearly two inches of rain that fell over the weekend was certainly beneficial.

Roxboro City Manager Jon Barlow said Monday that the rains had raised the water level at City Lake by four inches, bringing the lake to eight inches below normal. Barlow noted at midday Monday that he expected the lake level to continue to rise Tuesday and today.

“City Lake was eight inches below normal [Monday] morning,” Barlow said. “I suspect it will continue to rise for the next day or so, and that is good news.”

Barlow did not have a lake level available Monday for Lake Roxboro, the backup water source for City Lake, however, he expected the Lake Roxboro level to also rise as a result of the recent rains. Water is pumped from Lake Roxboro through a stream to City Lake when the level at City Lake falls to 24 inches below normal. The pumping continues until City Lake returns to 12 inches below normal.

An unofficial rain gauge at The Courier-Times office recorded 1.9 inches of rainfall over the weekend. That marked the third significant rain event for Person County in the past two weeks. The C-T gauge collected six-tenths of an inch of rain on Dec. 26 and nine-tenths of an inch on Dec. 15.

“The recent rains have definitely been a big help for us,” Barlow said. “We were not in any serious situation, but we did need some rain.”

Barlow had estimated last month that, despite the drought, the city still had over a one-year supply of water.

Even so, city staff had planned to speak with Roxboro City Council at its next meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 8, at 7 p.m. about the possibility of implementing voluntary water restrictions if significant rainfall was not received in December.

That discussion of the possible voluntary restrictions, however, came before any of the three rainfall events of the past two weeks.

“We will have to take a wait and see approach to see if we need to proceed in doing anything with voluntary conservation,” Barlow said Monday. “We are going to hold off on that right now to see what Lake Roxboro and City Lake are looking like in the next couple of days.”

While an official level at City Lake was not available Tuesday morning, the level had risen noticeably and was within inches of sending water over the spillway at the site.

“We came up four inches in a very short period of time,” Barlow noted Monday. “Give it a little more time and I think you will see even better results around the middle of the week.”

The rains of this past weekend proved extremely beneficial to neighboring Durham and Wake counties, which have seen water supply levels reach critical stages in recent weeks.

Officials with both Raleigh and Durham told WRAL-TV Monday that last week’s rains have added more than three weeks to their water supplies.

Raleigh was reportedly one day away from implementing tougher water restrictions late last week. The city was prepared to implement bans on outdoor watering and pressure washing and close many car washes if the water supply in Falls Lake, Raleigh’s primary reservoir, dropped to 90 days. The weekend rain could now push such a move back to February.

Falls Lake reportedly has more than 120 days of available water in the lake now, up from 91 days on Dec. 25.

The weekend rains reportedly added 24 days of water to supplies in Durham’s primary reservoirs — Lake Michie and the Little River Reservoir. Those two reportedly had a combined 60 days of water on hand Monday, up from 36 days combined last week.