Brisbane weather: Record rainfall in some places, little in others
What a difference 300km makes, as some areas of Queensland get up to 1000mm rainfall while the ones that need it most miss out.
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As the southeast was lashed with a deluge of rain and destructive high tides across the weekend, the rain fell short of the regions that needed it the most.
While Upper Springbrook recorded almost 1000mm of rain in the past five days, only 300km away on the Granite Belt, Stanthorpe was left with little respite from dry conditions, with 20mm falling in the last week, and Oakey on the Darling Downs only received 30mm.
Beaches on the Gold Coast were yesterday whipped into a foam frenzy after the wild weekend weather, with a 10m wave – the second largest in recorded history – measured off the Gold Coast Seaway.
Weather bureau meteorologist Pieter Claassen said showers and thunderstorms were expected across Queensland this week, due to a broad region of low pressure and high moisture.
“While winds and rainfall are easing across southeastern Queensland, we do still have a severe weather warning in place for abnormally high tides with a separate hazardous surf warning continuing for areas from Fraser Island to the New South Wales border,” he said.
“Upper Springbrook recorded 967mm in the last week, almost three times its monthly average.”
Stanthorpe’s Fig-tastic Fruit Farm’s Peter Broomhall said the weekend’s wild weather mostly brought windy conditions to the town, and the community remained very much in drought.
“The deficit from past seasons is in the hundreds of millimetres,” he said.
Mr Broomhall, who sold his produce from Brisbane’s Davies Park Markets, said his dam was still very low, with just enough water for the season.
“We are still in deficit for this year, the average being 758mm and only having 632mm so far,” he said.
Oakey farmer Braden Bullock, from Inverbrackie Farms, said conditions in the region remained relatively dry.
“If we could get some more rain we’d try to get some more crops planted that we haven’t been able to plant yet, it would help the crops so we can try and get a better income from that,” he said.
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