WAILUKU - Last week's steady rainfall on Tuesday and Wednesday might have been expected to replenish Upcountry reservoirs or dampen water demand.

But neither happened. The rains missed the East Maui watershed, for the most part, leaving Upcountry water reservoir supplies unchanged.

The Wailoa Ditch, which has a capacity of almost 200 million gallons per day, showed only one decent flow during the week ending Friday. That was on Thursday, when the ditch rose to 92 million gallons, but that represented only 46.1 percent of its capacity.

The ditch receives water from East Maui streams, and it's a good indicator of what's happening in the watershed. With the exception of Thursday, the ditch was flowing at less than a quarter of its capacity last week, a sign that the island's stubborn drought remains and normal winter rainfall has not returned to the islands, at least not in the watershed.

Department of Water Supply Director Jeff Eng said he remains hopeful that increasing trade winds will bring more rain to the East Maui watershed.

On the demand side, water use went up somewhat in Upcountry and Central and South Maui. Demand rose from an average of 18.6 million gallons per day in Central and South Maui in the week of Jan. 15-21 to 19.86 mgd last week. Water use Upcountry rose from 4.96 mgd to 5.23 mgd for the same periods.