Storms Set To Sweep Four States After Wet Queensland Week

The Bureau of Meteorology is watching a wet Queensland week pile onto a new round of storms crossing four states this weekend. Flood warnings are in place for South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania, and the bureau has nine flood warnings posted for southern Queensland. Rain that soaked the state through the week has already forced school closures and swift-water rescues.

Senior meteorologist David Crock said central and eastern Queensland towns including Rockhampton, Gladstone, Bundaberg, the Sunshine Coast hinterlands and Roma could see severe thunderstorms and heavy rain on Saturday. Severe storms may also reach Melbourne's eastern suburbs and parts of central and eastern South Australia. Tasmania is in line for heavy rain that develops overnight into Sunday morning.

A cold front is scheduled to cross New South Wales on Sunday. Crock said severe thunderstorms would follow it into western New South Wales, north-eastern Victoria, Sydney and Brisbane, and that the threat would run across eastern Australia, with severe storms likely through a wide part of inland eastern Australia.

Queensland's week already produced flash flooding in the Sunshine Coast hinterlands and Caboolture. Seven-day totals there ran from 300mm to 400mm, with some areas reaching 450mm, more than double the average October rainfall in a few days. Crock said such totals are much more typical of January or February than late October.

Thursday brought the heaviest falls, with torrential rain from Caboolture south to the Border Ranges and some places topping 200mm. The State Emergency Service fielded hundreds of calls, and several schools shut on Friday. The Queensland fire department carried out more than 16 swift-water rescues, including one where crews used a raft to reach an elderly man clinging to the roof of his vehicle at Caboolture.