Tropical Storm Fay has blown some much needed rain in the direction of Carroll County and officials are hopeful it might be enough to replenish the falling water levels in reservoirs.

Carroll County’s Snake Creek Reservoir was down 30 inches from full pool last Thursday, nearly the same level as last year at this time, and continued to drop until the rains started to fall this past weekend.

Monday morning water levels were back up to Thursday’s level after about 1.5 inches of rain fell at the reservoir over the weekend, said Matt Windom, executive director of the Carroll County Water Authority. The water level will continue to rise as water from streams and tributaries drains into the reservoir.

Carrollton’s reservoirs were also down before the rain “ Lake Carroll was down 8 inches, Sharp Creek was down 18 inches and Buckhorn was down 15 inches, said Tim Grizzard, assistant city manager. Since the rains, the lakes have all come up about 6 inches, and with predictions of rain through late Wednesday, all of the lakes will continue to benefit, he said.

“If we get the rain they’re predicting the next couple of days, we think Buckhorn will top off and we’re sure that Lake Carroll will top off,” Grizzard said. “We’ll probably still be a little bit down on Sharp Creek. It doesn’t fill as fast as the other two.”

The Chief Meteorologist at the Environmental Protection Division, Bill Murphy, said the area could expect another several inches of rain, anywhere from 2 inches to more than 4 inches depending on the location, over the next few days as Fay, which is now a tropical depression, moves through the area.

“The next 24 to 36 hours will be the heaviest precip(itation) amount,” Murphy said Monday. “We’ll get a period of steady, heavy rain (Tuesday).”

The rain will be welcomed, but both the county and the city say with demand down, there is plenty of water in the reservoirs right now.

“This drought is not nearly as bad as last year from Carrollton’s standpoint,” Grizzard said.

When Fresh Advantage closed at the end of March, the water demand for the city dropped roughly 7 percent, he said. Last year’s average water production was 6 million gallons a day. This August, it’s 5.5, Grizzard said.

Although the county has loosened some restrictions on lawn watering, it has seen a decrease in demand as well.

“We really haven’t seen that increase from releasing those restrictions, to be honest with you,” Windom said.

The county has also been able to better control the in flow and out flow to the reservoir since installing new control valves last June, he said. The valves give the water authority the means to match the out flow to the in flow from the streams, Windom said.

That’s especially important with stream flows, or the water flowing into the reservoirs, being down. If the stream flow dips below a certain level because the water demand is high, the water authorities need to augment the flow, Grizzard said. The stream flow from Newell, Ala., was down as the depth of the river dropped from 1.43 feet deep last year to 1.31 feet this year, he said.

“Year after year as the drought continues, it sort of makes sense that you’d see the stream flows get lower and lower during the summer months,” Windom said.

However, the county has been better able to manage the out flow and hasn’t released more water than necessary to augment the flow, he said. That has helped the lake hold up better under the drought this year, leaving the county in a better position this year, Windom said.