Take a look at this magnificent rainband stretching a good 2000 kilometres or so in a north-south arc across eastern Australia.

This system is delivering a good drop of rain to virtually the entire Murray-Darling Basin, including some western parts of the basin which have had a reasonably dry winter and are in need of spring rains.

• We told you this morning in this story how Port Augusta in South Australia saw more rain in the 24 hours to 9 am today than in the whole of winter this year. That was a pretty extreme example of a town that did "well" out of this system in terms of total rainfall (with 39.6 mm, although the rain caused localised flash-flooding).
• Another town that copped a serious downpour was Wilcannia in far northwest NSW, where 60.8 mm was recorded to 9 am Thursday morning.
• Even normally bone-dry Birdsville in SW Qld – where day one of the two-day bush races were cancelled after 20 mm last week – received another 10.2 mm of liquid gold to 9 am today.

As the system has tracked east today, the storms that brought heavy falls to dryland regions have dissipated, but moisture has persisted, and numerous towns and rural localities have still received their first decent rainfall for some time.

Totals since 9 am today have not been spectacular, but a good 10-15 mm soaking has been received across a broad area of NSW, Victoria and Qld within the Murray-Darling Basin, which will be appreciated by farmers. Rain is still falling in those areas as we write this story, so totals will likely end up in the 20-30 mm range.

You can see the running Thursday totals from 9 am to 4 pm on Thursday in the image above. Similar totals can be expected as far east as the Great Dividing Range, with slightly lower totals likely east of the ranges along the coastal strip, as westerly systems like this one tend to lose a bit of moisture as they track east over the ranges.

Rain will continue over parts of eastern and southeastern Australia on Friday and Saturday, clearing most areas by Sunday.