Winton – a Central West Queensland town that is home to 850 people and two iconic pieces of Australiana – is having its wettest March in more than 142 years of records.

It was in Winton in 1920 that Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services) was founded. Rumour also has it that Banjo Paterson set his famous poem Waltzing Matilda somewhere near Winton, as he was staying at a nearby cattle station when he wrote it.

And it was in Winton overnight that extremely heavy rain fell, breaking the town’s March monthly rainfall record in the stream of tropical moisture that continues to soak both coastal and inland parts of Queensland.

• In the 24 hours to 9am Wednesday, Winton saw 158.2mm of rain, bringing its monthly rainfall tally to 279mm.
• That exceeded the old March record of 249.8mm (from 2018), with records being kept in the town since 1884.
• The overnight rain also brought Winton's running annual rainfall total to 486.2mm, which means the annual average rainfall of 385.8mm has been comfortably exceeded less than a quarter of the way through the year.

Winton's steady rainfall kicked off during Tuesday afternoon, with the heaviest falls occurring between about midnight Tuesday and 8am Wednesday, as a near-stationary band of rain and thunderstorms parked itself over the Central West district.

Image: Eight-hour radar loop showing the heaviest period of rain in the 24 hours to 9am Wednesday, March 26, in the vicinity of Winton, Qld.

Moderate flooding is currently occuring in the Western River, a tributary of the Diamantina River which sits on Winton’s southern fringe. The Winton Shire Disaster Dashboard has additional information on local warnings for creeks, rivers and roads.

Winton was far from the only Queensland town to experience extremely heavy rain overnight. To illustrate the widespread nature of the 24-hour rainfall to 9am Wednesday:

• 230mm was recorded at Bogewong, near Longreach in Queensland’s Central West forecast district.
• 154mm was recorded at Florence Creek, a weather station just south of Cloncurry in Queensland’s North West forecast district.
• Falls of more than 100mm were recorded at several stations near Charleville in the Maranoa and Warrego forecast district
• Numerous sites around Townsville received well in excess of 100mm in the 24-hour period to 9am Wednesday, just a week after Townsville endured its heaviest day of rain in 27 years. 

Some of the localities mentioned in the list above are more than 1000km apart, emphasising both the scale and strength of this rainfall event – which are all part of the same broad-scale weather system.

READ MORE: RARE SIGHT AS THE WHOLE OF QLD COVERED IN CLOUD 

While the implications of this week’s rain are being felt in the short-term through localised flooding, they will also be felt in weeks and months to come, as floodwaters in western, southwestern and central Queensland flow southwest towards the currently dry Lake Eyre Basin, where the waters are expected to arrive in late April.