‘Significant flooding’ likely, BoM issues flood watch for majority of state

Residents are being urged to take care in the wet weather after a man in his 20s was rescued from floodwaters in Mount Isa, in the state’s north-west, last night.

The man was transported to Mount Isa Hospital in a stable condition with hypothermia.

Heavy showers and storms are expected to lash much of the state today as the rain event deepens.

A severe weather warning has been issued for the Central and Northern interior.

An initial flood watch has also been issued for western and central Queensland and the central and north Queensland coast.

Longreach, in Queensland’s outback, has already recorded 8.4mm of rain since 9am, Mount Isa 11.2mm, Townsville 12.4mm, while the Sunshine Coast airport has recorded 36.6mm.

Longreach local Jenny Gordon said the rain has not eased since midnight.

“It started around 12.15am and hasn’t let up. Will measure (the gauge) at 9am,” she said.

Today weather presenter Tim Davies said Longreach has a monthly average of 23mm of rain.

Meteorologist Laura Boekel said “it doesn’t take much rainfall for catchments to respond really quickly.”

“That’s when we can start seeing flash flooding and that’s when we see the situations that become more life threatening,” she said.

Last week, Queensland Fire and Emergency (QFES) urged residents in affected areas to develop a “Plan B”.

‘Unusual’ weather system behind big wet

The wet weather is being caused by an upper level trough over central Australia.

Rain will be heaviest over central parts of the state today, before the system sweeps across to the coast tomorrow.

Dangerous surf “up to three metres” is expected to develop in Queensland later this week.

Weatherzone said some parts of the state could be hit with “several month’s worth of rain in a single day.”

“This weather pattern is very unusual for May,” the weather service said.

“A broad area of Queensland could pick up more than 100mm from this system and some areas could see more than 300mm.”

Queensland’s south-east is also on alert, however meteorologist Jackson Browne yesterday said the worst of the weather is expected across the central regions and north coast.

Areas in NSW are also expected to see heavy rain later in the week.

“The forecasting modelling really doesn’t detail exactly how far south the heaviest of the rain will move,” Davies said.