Andamooka flash flooding turns main street into river

Amazing pictures have captured recent flash flooding in the Far North South Australian town of Andamooka that transformed the high street into a waterway

Flash flooding has inundated the main street of one of South Australia’s Far North towns in the past few days, turning it into a river.

Andamooka, which is about 600 km north of Adelaide and has a population of about 260 people, has had just under 40 per cent of its annual rain in the first 18 days of 2023, according to the Bureau of Meteorology

BOM’s senior meteorologist Jenny Horvat said the active weather period for Andamooka had been going on since Sunday.

“Andamooka had some thunderstorms on Sunday and then more storms around Tuesday,” Ms Horvat said.

“On January 14, in a 24 hour period Andamooka had 34mm of rainfall and then the following day only had 4mm.”

“And then on 16th to the 17th the rain gauge showed nearly 22mm of rain.”

Families enjoy the “river” in Andamooka’s main street. Picture: 7NEWS

The town has had many times its average rainfall. Picture: 7NEWS

People swimming on the main street of Andamooka. Picture: 7NEWS

Local Leila Day said the flooding was unexpected. Picture: 7NEWS

But the residents of the mining town kept in high in spirit and enjoyed taking a walk in knee-deep muddy waters while children on school holidays took a swim.

One of the Andamooka families who enjoyed their unusual swim described the flash flooding torrent.

“The water was so strong and it kept getting stronger and stronger,” said an Andamooka schoolgirl on 7NEWS.

“So I just laid on my back and let the water take me somewhere.”

And Leila Day, from Andamooka Post Office, said the wet weather was very unexpected for the locals.

“We thought that it was going to be quite a hot summer this year,” Ms Day said.

“We’ve had wet summers the last probably three or four years and not too many days over 40 but this year we were expecting the high 40s maybe into the low 50s, we were really preparing ourselves for heatwave weather.”

Ms Day also said the lack of warning about the wet weather meant the residents were unable to prepare for the damage the floodings would cause their businesses.

“Some of the businesses had a bit of leakages through the roof and water come through the shop,” she said.

“Our post, we need to move parcels around because if the rain comes in a particular way it will get onto where our parcel storage is … so that’s a pretty interesting job.”

But Ms Day said some of the water had already subsided and people could drive around.

The BOM forecasts dry days to come with Thursday warming up to a hot 33C, with clear skies.

The heat will keep on rising with Friday predicted to be 35C, then Saturday climbing to a top of 39C, and finally Sunday 42C.