THE drought is officially over after Tropical Storm Harvey dumped 3.15 inches of rain on the island in the space of six hours.

The centre of the storm system was around 30 miles to the south-east of Bermuda when it came closest to us at 5 a.m. yesterday.

And, according to Bermuda Weather Service (BWS) meteorologist James Morrison, between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. more than three inches of welcome rainfall doused the island.

Mr. Morrison also reported that in the 24-hour period up to 3 p.m. yesterday, BWS measured 4.26 inches of rainfall at the airport.

The deluge meant Bermuda is now well ahead of its normal cumulative rainfall for this time of year, despite having endured the driest June in at least half a century, which left some residents with empty water tanks and water truckers with a large backlog of customers.

"By my calculation, on average for this date we should be at 32.25 inches of rainfall, but we are now at 36.16 inches," Mr. Morrison said yesterday.

"The average rainfall figure for August is 5.64 inches and we have just about reached that already in the first few days of the month."

Mr. Morrison said while it would take time and research to find statistics showing record amounts of rainfall in a short time, Harvey had produced one of heaviest Bermuda downpours that he was aware of.

It was only two weeks ago that the tanker Panam Sol delivered a shipment of 2.5 million gallons to Dockyard to help the island deal with the water shortage. It was the first time an emergency delivery of water had been shipped in for 15 years.

The Government came under heavy criticism for poor maintenance that rendered two of its tanks at the reverse osmosis plant at Prospect useless and left the plant unable to keep up with demand from truckers and their customers.

The drought also brought into focus the poor condition of catchment areas at Tudor Hill and Morgan's Point, in particular.

Yesterday afternoon, as Harvey moved well away to the island's north east, it strengthened and its sustained winds reached 55 to 60 knots, bringing it close to category one hurricane strength.

Harvey's rains may have seemed like a deluge to Bermuda residents, but they pale into insignificance when compared with the torrents that broke records in India last week. In some areas of Mumbai, 37.1 inches of rain fell in the space of one day, causing death and destruction.