"Months of Rain" Threatens Australia Flooding
Torrential rain will threaten to cause flooding this week in a swath over middle and southeastern Australia.
Key agricultural lands and some urban areas will be at risk of inundation, as will wide tracts of open desert.
Widespread rainfall through Sunday will reach 150 to 250 mm, or about 6 to 10 inches.
Already, as of Tuesday, the first downpours left rainfall of 75 to 150 mm in parts of northeastern Victoria and southern New South Wales, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
Rivers rose significantly, although no widespread stream flooding was indicated by the BoM site as of Tuesday evening, local time.
The corridor having outbursts of heavy rain will stretch between Sydney and Melbourne in the southeastern states of Victoria and New South Wales. Canberra, the nation's capital, could get some of the heaviest rain.
The rainy corridor will also reach west to near Adelaide, South Australia.
Abundant tropical moisture flowing southward through the desert hinterland of Australia will help to set up the thundery cloudbursts as it interacts with a cold front shifting slowly northward from the Southern Ocean.
Earlier in the Southern summer, flooding farther north in eastern Australia inundated swathes of northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, flooding homes, businesses and crops.
As of this week, major flooding from the mid-summer cloudbursts was still making its way down the Darling River in a slow-motion tsunami that has been forecast to last into May.
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Daily U.S. Extremes
past 24 hours
| Extreme | Location | |
|---|---|---|
| High | 100° | Smyrna, TN |
| Low | 15° | Sunset Crater, AZ |
| Precip | 3.99" | Wadena, MN |
WeatherWhys®
Hail is much more common during the months of May and June compared to July and August. The main reason is the fact that the freezing level is usually higher during July and August as pockets of cold air in the upper atmosphere are less common as the jet stream weakens and retreats farther north.
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