When It Doesn't Rain It Pours !

[Baccus]

After months of no rain and all the non irrigated parks around town becoming dust bowls, now the monsoon trough has come down from the tropics with an ex-cyclone we now have more rain than is funny.
 
But went for a couple of drives today around my work area and photographed some of the parks I mow, weedeat and poison.
 
First off is Garland Park, just yesterday it was literally a dust bowl and we where quickly cleaning up the drains in readiness for the expected rain.
 

 
Kele Park another was dry and dead park (except for where the irrigation was working on the playing fields

 And the road running parallel to Kele park, all the water is flowing across into the park

 
Jardine park

 
The Playground at Huish Drive

 
Drain near the Airport

 
The back of my work Depot

 
And finally on the way home this drain just down the road from my house

 
And not to feel left out my front garden

 In  24 hrs we have had over 152mm of rain and the same again expected tomorrow and the next day!

 

[TooManyChoices]

Wow, where are you in Australia? I'm about an hour south east of Melbourne, and down here it's hot and really dry. And we don't get any monsoonal weather

 

[Baccus]

Central QLD

 . It has been as hot and humid as hell here, and will return to that once this low clears the area. But until then I am enjoying being at work and not having to do anything. Such rare events we have to savour and remember for the next dry spell.

 

[Better is Betta]

I told you I was going to send you some rain from up north Baccus.  We have had a week of it and cyclonic winds.  As usual the highway into Cairns has been cut off and you know this has happened when all the shelves in the supermarkets are getting empty and bare.  Great pics of the areas going under water....I hope you don't get too much more or you will have to swim to work.

 

[Jenste]

Hope you can swim!

On a serious note, hope you have no damage from the next few days of rain!

 

[Baccus]

Its wonderful to see and hear this sort of rain, almost makes me think I am back in the Northern Territory, I always loved the wet season and miss the warm rain something feircely.
Thanks for sending the rain down better is betta, now the bush fire threat has eased until all the grass can grow super tall again and die off all over again. I have a new saying for Queensland too now "Queensland sunny one day, flooded the next"

Update 248.1mm in 24 hours and its really bucketing down now, even flooded around my front door and it never fioods. So glad I live near the top of a hill.

 

[TooManyChoices]

So glad I live near the top of a hill.

 
That makes it all fun! Do you get many cane toads around you? I have an utter fascination with the things and I've never been able to find any when I've been to the gold/sunshine coast!

 

[the_lock_man]

Excuse me? I thought it was us Whingeing Pomms that complain about the weather? I dunno, a bit of rain and they can't cope.... Tsk.

 

[Baccus]

Excuse me? I thought it was us Whingeing Pomms that complain about the weather? I dunno, a bit of rain and they can't cope.... Tsk.

 
I have an excuse....my Dads an ex-pom

 .
 
Plenty of Cane toads around here, we often do culls of them around the yard to give the native frogs a chance. In a couple of weeks we will have thousands if not millions of new toadlets thanks to all the rain and extra water about the place.

 

[Baccus]

Ok so all the rain and flood water has reeked havoc around here the past day and a half I have had no mobile phone service (apart from emergancy frequencies) and no internet. I have been lucky though other people have been evacuated from their homes and or have no power even.
This rain event is such a massive system to hit Queensland.
Any way I managed to get out and about a bit yesterday afternoon and got some more flood photos from around my town, can't get into Rockhampton.
First Picture is the dam in my backyard infront of my goldfish pond and pond/ bathtub.

 
Road leading away from my house

 
The drain not far from my house

 
A local sporting field that backs onto a park called A Touch of Paradise

 
Looking back towards the park

 
Same sort of area of the sporting field, the corner of the building you can see is part of the town pool.

 Houses across the road from the sporting area. Under the water is the local tennis courts and skate bowl.

 

[Better is Betta]

Very wet indeed.

 ....is it still raining or has it all past.  Its amazing how fast the water can appear just over night.  Hopefully it will disappear just as fast.  Not only will you get millions of toads but the mosquito population will be up as well.

 

[Baccus]

Mozzie population was already nasty

 , the toads I can manage its the snakes looking for higher ground I have to worry about

 . Last floods I got a carpet python in my avairy which ate my nesting pair of canaries.
 
I really am not looking forwards to Tuesday 37 degrees predicited

 

 .
 
So far the rain has eased a heap but they are predicting another 50mm overnight

 .

 

[the_lock_man]

You lot made the news in the UK last night.

 

[Baccus]

Sorry I missed your post, did Rocky make it to the news or only Brisbane or possibly Bundaberg?
 
The water is now down and just the residual water is flowing out of the Fitzroy river, but thousands of fish have been killed. Now at one of the main parks I work in has not only got the stinking sludge mud/ silt left behind from the flood but also hundreds of rotting fish above the high tide mark, so next high tide wont take them away

 .
 
Here are some pictures I took the other day after getting back into Rockhampton after being flooded out for a few days.
 
Hundreds of fish gasping and dying and the size of the eels was just mind blowing as well as the sheer numbers of them.

 
And some of the damage done to the bank just at Huish Drive (Park along side the river)

 
There used to be a minimum of two metres between the drop off of the bank and the fence

 
A seat that people used to be able to use, but then we had a different flood and the seat wasn't so safe any more, now its just a matter of time till it ends up in the river
 
 
 

 
And lastly an eel with a heap of small fish

 

[TooManyChoices]

I'd be sooo sad if I had to see that! I'd jump in to try and save that eel!