While the weather focus right now is understandably on the heavy east coast rainfall and flooding emergency, a meteorological wonder is unfolding in Australia's Red Centre.

It's raining at The Rock. And with the heavy rain comes spectacular cascades of water at Uluru.

The beautiful image below was taken by Nicole Brown, who is originally from country Victoria but has lived in Alice Springs and Yulara for much of the last few years, working as a guide.

Image: Not the worst water feature we've ever seen. Source: Nicole Brown. @nicoool.b on Instagram.

"I've seen the waterfalls on The Rock a few times, but these are the biggest waterfalls I've seen in two or three years," Brown told Weatherzone.

She said the waterfalls were surprisingly noisy, and that the cascade on the far left of that photo is the biggest one at the base of the rock.

"We were standing two or three metres away from it and just getting drenched from the spray," she said.

According to Brown, the cascades don't start tumbling down The Rock as soon as heavy rain starts. First, large rockpools higher up have to fill. Only when they start overflowing do the waterfalls start falling in earnest.

The water then fills in waterholes at the base of Uluru.

"When they overflow, it just floods out over the plains," Brown said. "It takes ages for the rain to soak in here."

Image: Looks like a bumpy ride. Source: @ash.tography on Instagram.

Yulara, the nearest weather station to Uluru, received 40.4 mm of rain in the 24 hours to 9 am Monday morning. It came steadily as a nice soaking fall rather than in one brief burst. There were also 12.4 mm of rain the previous day.

The average for March at Yulara is 30.8 mm.

And for a really good explanation of how moist air has drifted across Central Australia in the same vast "atmospheric" river that is affecting the east coast, check out Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino’s recent story here.