feelings, welcoming the moisture but tolerating the wind.

And despite showers and windy conditions, neither Bermuda Electric Light Company nor Bermuda Telephone Company Ltd. reported any weather-related problems -- although the Fire Service was called in to deal with a house flood on Thursday evening.

A thunderstorm advisory and small craft warning was issued by the Bermuda Weather Service from yesterday through to this morning, as the disturbance moves off to the east. Weather conditions are expected to settle later today, with sunny periods and scattered showers forecast for this afternoon.

The rain comes in the midst of concern about the Island's water supply by Government MPs, who have urged residents to conserve water.

But Government hydrogeologist Mark Rowe said the large lenses responsible for supplying water to Hamilton buildings are not really affected by short periods of drought or rainfall.

"As long as the drought is counteracted at some point, there will be no problem,'' he said.

"We typically have a period of several dry weeks every year and this is quite normal.'' The capacity of the central lens is two billion gallons, supplemented by smaller lenses in St. George's, Port Royal and Somerset. Water extraction is restricted to about two million gallons daily from all four lenses.

"Right now they are probably pumping very close to the limits, but normally the usage is much lower,'' Mr. Rowe said.

Just 22.87 inches of rainfall have been recorded this year to date, some six inches short of the normal 28.79 inches.

Only 1.71 inches of rainfall was measured during the month of June, down from a normal 5.2 inches.

But July rainfall is at 2.51 inches so far, on par with the usual amount 4.2 inches for the whole month.

And meteorologists of the Bermuda Weather Service said just over an inch fell over the course of the day.

Water Trucker Kevin DeSilva said he had seen a definite decrease in demand for water beginning last week, although a lot of people are still placing orders.

"People were waiting eight to ten days for water before,'' he said.

"But now they don't have to wait as water truckers have just about caught up on their backlog. The demand began in March and just got worse and worse. We were working 24-hour days sometimes.'' But he encouraged people to keep on checking their tanks, even with the rain.

"Don't think that just because of the rain, you have water -- that's not necessarily so,'' he said.