A quote from the ‘World Weather Guide’ says of Australia: “The wettest districts form a crescent around the dry heart of the country.” And looking at today’s satellite picture there is a crescent of thunderstorms from Adelaide, around the coast of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, up to Cairns. Spot on then.
Normally the heaviest rains in Queensland fall in January or February but this November and December have been pretty wet.
One low pressure area at the moment is in the west of NSW where the state emergency services have been kept busy with rainfalls of 100 to 225mm. At 4pm local time the Australian Weather Bureau issued a warning of severe weather to cover a vast area of NSW. Large hail, damaging winds and heavy rain are expected. To give you an idea, the average rainfall for Bourke in NSW for December is 36mm and Adelaide 25mm.
Queensland, site of the other low, is suffering at least as badly. The heaviness of the rain is good in that it fills the Hinze Dam; but it's bad in that it carries off topsoil. Brisbane’s December average rainfall is 106mm but reports this morning from the Gold Coast were 242mm in Miami; 156mm in Coolangata and 197mm at Oyster Creek.
There’s no reason to suppose there’s any relief in sight. The UK Met Office model serves heavy rain to Queensland for at least the next two days. Victoria, NSW and Australian Capital Territory will face the same again by the end of the week.
Normally rain is good news and it works best when it falls steadily but not heavily so the ground can actually soak it up. Summer rain in Australia is not characterised by “steadily”; more like suddenly at the moment.
