"We obviously need to allow dams to recover to a good level."
Lamonte could not rule out the possibility of restrictions still being in place this time next year.
He said long-range forecasts "have some good rains during this winter season" but "it's also saying we could end up with a dry spring".
"What we've got to do is have a plan for whatever comes our way," Lamonte said.
"The first thing is we need to carry on what we've been doing … everyone's got the message that water's a precious resource."
He also said the council had done a lot of work around irrigation water use and there were new water supplies from Waikato River.
Lamonte said fixing leaks was a key focus for Watercare, which could save the city six million litres a day.
Mayor Phil Goff was not concerned. "I think it's impossible to predict the weather," he said in regards to the possibly dry spring.
"What I am confident is that we will get some replenishment of our lakes over the winter, with an additional 100 million litres per day being drawn from other sources."
Goff said Auckland was no longer as reliant on dam storage as a year ago "because we've spent nearly a quarter-of-a-billion dollars in improving the resilience of our water supply".
Goff also pointed to the changes to water restrictions in December, which allowed people to use hoses with a trigger nozzle attached.
He hoped water-saving measures that people have taken was a "habit" people would maintain.
Goff was more concerned about climate change than water use by people in the Auckland region. It worried him that Auckland had had drier-than-normal conditions for three consecutive years.
"What we have to adapt to is maybe a different future where the impact of climate change could mean that we have more extreme weather conditions, such as drought," he said.
