Brisbane Area Absolutely Crushed By Rain!

Left: Photo of downtown Brisbane by Marc Robertson.



It's hard to believe they are still in a drought in SE Queensland (though technically that's still true)!

Debate continues whether The Gap was hit by a tornado on Sunday, or just a very powerful thunderstorm:

Mr Rolstone said supercells do have the potential to create tornados but it cannot be confirmed whether a tornado occurred during Sunday's storm.

"Supercells do produce tornados. They are rotating storms which create a funnel underneath them. They move in a different direction to a normal storm. They move left of the normal direction a storm takes and come from the south rather than from the west," Mr Rolstone said.

He said it was this intense rotating storm which devastated The Gap and surrounding areas but it was definitely not a cyclone.

Even before this latest series of storms, things were looking up rainwise:

BRISBANE could be headed for its wettest November since 1981 with the city already experiencing well above the monthly average rainfall.

...Thanks to last night's soaking, Brisbane's total for November is already at close to 170mm compared with the monthly average of 100mm.

..."We've almost become acclimatised to the dry weather in the last few years but we're getting back now to what's traditionally a south-east Queensland spring, heading into summer. We haven't seen it very often in the last few years."

Last November Brisbane had just 62mm of rain but with 12 days of the month to go, the city had already recorded 169mm with more expected in the next few days.

"In 2001, we had 192mm for the month but we look like beating that this year," Mr Banks said.

The biggest monthly fall on record for November was 413mm in 1981.

So, with the 80 mm they received last night, that means they easily beat 2001's 192 mm, with a total so far of about 250 mm. They still have time to make a lunge for 1981's record of 413 mm!

The rainfall totals from the latest storm are just staggering. Gatton received 170 mm+ in the last 14 hours (that's about 7 inches!) The perils of living in the semi-tropics, I suppose: no rain for months, then half a year's worth in a day!

Fortunately the front is blowing out to sea, and so, excepting the odd thunderstorm, maybe now they'll get a break. But most people will be too busy trying to swim to land to notice.....

SOUTHEAST Queensland has been hit by floods after an overnight deluge dumped 240mm of rain in some areas.

...Brisbane's Inner City Bypass, the Ipswich Motorway and Warrego Highway are all cut, along with suburban streets across Brisbane, Ipswich and the Gold Coast.
Primary areas affected include Ipswich, Oxley, Darra and Forest Lake plus The Gap, Ashgrove, Sherwood and Indooroopilly.

...All bus services are still operating, though with diversions in place, but no trains are running between Ipswich and Redbank, and Ferny Grove and Keperra. Buses are in place.

Police have responded to calls for assistance overnight – four homes were unroofed in Paddington and a number of cars underwater.

There have been at least nine swift water rescues of people in cars which have occurred at Ipswich, Woolshed Creek, Maudsland, Forestdale.

...The SES received more than 10,000 calls overnight as the severe storms swept through the region, causing the most problems at Ipswich and in Brisbane' west and north.

The weather bureau said rain fell at a pace of 100mm an hour in some parts.

Ipswich was badly affected _an Emergency Services spokesperson said nine swiftwater rescues were performed overnight to get people from cars in swollen creeks and rivers.

...The weather is pushing emergency volunteers to breaking point as they try to cope with one of the worst weeks of weather in the region in recent memory.

...The only bright note has been the falls in the dam catchment areas. The weather bureau said 75mm had fallen at the Wivenhoe Dam wall overnight.

Gatton had 164mm overnight while Rosewood had 208mm, mostly in a two-hour deluge.

But the heartbreak continues in Brisbane' northwest, where residents still cleaning up from last Sunday spent a sleepless night bailing water from their houses.

"We're exhausted," The Gap resident and Courier-Mail journalist Michael Lund said.

"We're a suburb that's used to watching storms go around us."