The Hume Dam has steadily sunk from a peak of 93 per cent in 2011 to 18 per cent this year.

Murray Darling Basin Authority River Murray operations director Neville Garland said the Hume’s levels were low but not unusual for the end of the irrigation season.

“At this time of year, people tend to hold on to any remaining water in their accounts for use in the next irrigation season,” he said.

“There is also a minimum flow required simply to maintain the operation of the river, which is 600 megalitres per day.

“We always take a conservative approach to managing storages in the Murray. 

“In other words, we are constantly planning for dry conditions.”

Mr Garland said Hume Dam was supplemented by upstream storage in Dartmouth which was at 43 per cent.

“The latest outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology shows an increased chance of rain which is welcome news but we will need rain to persist over several months to push the level of Hume towards full,” he said.

The Border has had a well below average amount of rainfall for February, March and April.

Until Friday, only 7.8 millimetres had dropped for the month until the region saw some rain on Friday, with a further 7 millimetres coming down.

BoM climatologist Jonathon Pollock said the North East was likely to have a wetter than average three months ahead.

“The odds aren't emphatic, sitting between a 65 and 70 per cent of getting above average rainfall,” he said.

Mr Pollock said most of Victoria hadn’t reached even 20 per cent of its average rainfall for April up to Thursday.

“We had a very strong El Nino across 2015 and 2016, that's been in decline and we think we'll be out of that in the next few weeks,” he said.

The bureau boffin said there were indications a La Nina was on the way for the latter part of the year which could bring Spring rain.

Mr Pollock said May in Victoria was going to be fairly neutral, but June and July would be a bit wetter.

He said day and night time temperatures would be warmer than average.