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Qld death toll rises to six as deluge continues

Anthony Sharwood profile image
Anthony Sharwood

Six people have now lost their lives in the devastating rainfall event in southeast Queensland.

The latest was a 34-year-old man who failed to surface after reportedly trying to swim to safety from his vehicle in the Brisbane suburb of Indooroopilly.

On Saturday, an SES volunteer was swept away while trying to help to stranded locals in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane, when the vehicle she was in was swept off the road by floodwaters.

She was named as Merryl Dray, a volunteer who had given more than 520 hours of her time with the Lowood SES Group over the last four years. The other SES volunteers in her vehicle were able to escape.

Meanwhile at least 1000 roads have been cut and more than 20,000 properties are still without power in the Gympie, Brisbane and Moreton Bay regions.

The danger is far from over yet in southeast Queensland, with another day of heavy rain on the cards before conditions ease off to an extent from Monday onwards (though lighter showers should stick around all week).

Some of the rainfall totals from this event have been mindboggling:

Brisbane has just recorded its second-straight day with more than 200 mm in the gauge.

  • To 9 am Saturday morning, 225.6 mm was recorded.
  • To 9 am Sunday morning, a similar total was registered with 228.4 mm.

With 664.2 mm mm in the gauge for February to date, Brisbane has now had its eighth-wettest month (any month) on record, and its third-wettest February on record, although it will likely end up being the second-wettest.

But it's in hilly areas just west of the SE Qld coast that rainfall totals have truly been staggering.

Mt Glorious, just NW of Brisbane, registered 709 mm to 9 am Saturday, this was the highest daily rainfall anywhere in Australia for 23 years.

Other heavy readings to 9 am Saturday included:

  • 541mm at Pomona
  • 444mm at Tin Can Bay
  • 427mm at Upper Doonan
  • 381mm at Dayboro
  • 301mm at Gatton
  • 236mm at Brisbane City
  • 224mm at Ipswich

Some of the more dramatic readings in the 20-hour period from 9 am Saturday to 5 am Sunday included:

  • 430mm at Mount Glorious
  • 317mm at Elimbah
  • 306mm at Rose Ck Road
  • 302mm at Mount Mee
  • 288mm at Beerburrum
  • 295mm at Wamuran
  • 283mm at Delaneys Ck

So that's 1139 mm and counting for Mt Glorious in just under 48 hours.

To put that in perspective, that one rain gauge in the hills just NW of Brisbane has registered more rain in two days than the city's ANNUAL average rainfall of 1011.5 mm (as measured since 1999).

It goes without saying that the situation in southeast Queensland remains extremely serious. We urge you to check in on our warnings page here. And please, don’t drive through floodwaters.

And as if there's not enough serious weather around, a severe thunderstorm warning has also just been issued for the Brisbane area. 

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