Floods Australia:Mackay emergency as 625mm deluge in three h

[Crostorm]

HUNDREDS of Mackay residents have spent the night in emergency accommodation after their homes were swamped by floodwaters from the biggest downpour to hit the city in 90 years.
Many of the same residents who bunkered down at four makeshift evacuation centres overnight had earlier been forced to scramble on to roofs to escape a wave of waist-high water that swept through up to 2000 homes.

A total of 624mm was dumped on Mackay in the 10 hours to noon yesterday, nearly half the city's annual rainfall of 1561mm and almost twice as much rain as Brisbane has received so far this year.

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http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/stor ... 52,00.html



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[HURAKAN]

That's impressive. Could this be attributed to the strong La Niña?

[Ed Mahmoud]

6.25 cm is less than three inches.


I suspect a Las Vegas type desert climate, with hard soils, and natural and man-made drainage systems not capable of handling what would not be a big deal here around Houston. That kind of rain would flood some side streets, and a few neighborhoods with very poor drainage, but would not be catastrophic.


Edit to add- just got kicked in the butt by a decimal point. That is 62.5 cm, which would be a monster flood anywhere, and suggests monstrous rainfall rates.

[HURAKAN]

625 mm = 24.6063 inches

[Ed Mahmoud]

625 mm = 24.6063 inches

Yeah, I tripped over a decimal point and landed flat on my face. I'm not sure if we had rainfall rates like that around here even during Tropical Storm Allison.

[Cryomaniac]

625 mm = 24.6063 inches

Yeah, I tripped over a decimal point and landed flat on my face. I'm not sure if we had rainfall rates like that around here even during Tropical Storm Allison.

We didn't have 625mm here the whole of last summer, and that was the wettest 3 months ever. To have that in three hours is mad.

[Ed Mahmoud]

625 mm = 24.6063 inches

Yeah, I tripped over a decimal point and landed flat on my face. I'm not sure if we had rainfall rates like that around here even during Tropical Storm Allison.

We didn't have 625mm here the whole of last summer, and that was the wettest 3 months ever. To have that in three hours is mad.

We got more rain than that during Tropical Storm Allison, but while most of it fell in about a six hour period, it was spread out over about a 2 day period here. That much in 3 hours in almost inconceivable.