Dam Levels Skill

Check current dam levels and water storage for Greater Sydney. Zero config — no API keys, no setup.

Install

npx skills add agairola/life-skills --skill dam-levels

When to Use

Trigger this skill when the user:

Asks about dam levels, water storage, or reservoir levels
Asks how full Warragamba Dam (or any Sydney dam) is
Asks about water restrictions or water supply
Wants to know dam capacity or volume
Mentions Sydney water supply, dam storage, or drought conditions
Asks "how much water do we have" or similar

Prerequisites

uv — brew install uv (macOS) or pip install uv (all platforms)
API keys — not needed. Data is scraped from the public WaterNSW website.
Dependencies — declared inline (PEP 723), installed automatically by uv run.

Setup Status

!command -v uv > /dev/null 2>&1 && echo "uv: installed" || echo "uv: NOT INSTALLED"

Command Template

uv run "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/dam_levels.py" [OPTIONS]

Options

Flag	Values	Default	Purpose
`--dam`	dam name (string)	(none)	Search for a specific dam by name (fuzzy matched)
`--all`	(flag)	on	Show all Greater Sydney dams (default behaviour)
`--no-cache`	(flag)	off	Force fresh data

Only parse stdout (JSON). Stderr contains diagnostics only.

Common Commands

# All Greater Sydney dams (default)
uv run "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/dam_levels.py"

# Specific dam by name (fuzzy matched)
uv run "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/dam_levels.py" --dam "Warragamba"

# Another dam
uv run "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/dam_levels.py" --dam "Woronora"

# Force fresh data
uv run "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/dam_levels.py" --no-cache

# Explicit all dams
uv run "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/dam_levels.py" --all

Presenting Results

Follow the formatting rules in ../../references/platform-formatting.md. Key skill-specific formatting below.

All Dams (default)

Greater Sydney Dam Levels:

Total system: 95.2% (2,565,855 ML of 2,696,310 ML)
Water restrictions: No restrictions (system above 60%)

Warragamba Dam — 95.8% (2,027,255 ML)
Avon Dam — 93.2% (195,240 ML)
Cataract Dam — 98.1% (93,290 ML)
Woronora Dam — 97.2% (68,175 ML)
Nepean Dam — 99.1% (66,750 ML)
Cordeaux Dam — 96.5% (50,710 ML)
Prospect Reservoir — 83.5% (29,515 ML)
Wingecarribee Reservoir — 88.3% (24,330 ML)
Fitzroy Falls Reservoir — 91.0% (9,110 ML)
Tallowa Dam (Shoalhaven) — 85.0% (7,480 ML)

Source: WaterNSW

Single Dam (--dam)

Warragamba Dam — 95.8%

Volume: 2,027,255 ML of 2,031,000 ML total capacity
Water restrictions: No restrictions (system above 60%)

Source: WaterNSW

Formatting Rules

Sort dams by volume (largest first) for the all-dams view
Format ML values with commas for readability (e.g., 2,027,255 ML)
Always include the total system percentage and water restriction status
If using fallback data, note it clearly: "Note: Live data was unavailable. Showing data from [date]."
Invite follow-up: "Ask me about a specific dam for more detail."

Handling Edge Cases

Fallback data (data_source: "fallback"): Show results but add a note — "Note: Live data from WaterNSW was unavailable. Showing stored data from [fallback date]. Check waternsw.com.au for the latest."
No matching dam (error response): "No dam matching '[query]' found. Available dams: [list]. Try a different name."
Scraping failure: The script automatically falls back to embedded data. If even that fails, show the error message from the JSON.
Water restrictions: Always mention the restriction status prominently. If restrictions are likely (below 60%), emphasise this.

Reference

Greater Sydney Dams

Dam	Total Capacity (ML)
Warragamba Dam	2,031,000
Avon Dam	214,640
Cataract Dam	97,190
Woronora Dam	71,790
Nepean Dam	67,730
Cordeaux Dam	54,250
Prospect Reservoir	33,330
Wingecarribee Reservoir	27,580
Fitzroy Falls Reservoir	10,000
Tallowa Dam (Shoalhaven)	8,800

Water Restriction Levels

System Level	Status
Above 60%	No restrictions
50-60%	Level 1 restrictions likely
40-50%	Level 2 restrictions likely
Below 40%	Severe restrictions likely

Data Source

Data is scraped from the public WaterNSW website. If scraping fails, embedded fallback data is used. No API key is needed. No user data is sent to any service.