Original story at ABC News
Parts of the north Queensland coast have been lashed by record rainfall with thunderstorms causing flash flooding.
Flooding in Bowen in 2010.
Bowen on Queensland’s Burdekin coast officially recorded 267 millimetres overnight.
That is more than double the previous 24 hour rain record for the month of 129 millimetres set in 1950.
Jonty Hall from the weather bureau says much of that came in an hour long deluge.
“Drainage really struggles to cope with that sort of rainfall especially over that period of time,” he said.
In the Whitsundays, Hamilton Island registered 233 millimetres – also well up on the previous November record of 145 millimetres in 1991.
Two cars were stranded in Bowen but the occupants of both vehicles escaped.
The incidents have prompted renewed warnings from authorities about the dangers of driving into floodwaters.
Mr Hall says a slow moving thunderstorm system caused the deluge.
“We often see this kind of activity when we have these sort of very humid northerly winds feeding onto the coast,” he said.
“We see these very localised, heavy falls.”
Mr Hall says other places in the region have received much less.
“It tends to be very hit and miss so a lot of places might be waking up not really understanding what is going on because they haven’t really received anything,” he said.
The flash flooding closed the Bruce Highway just south of Bowen along with a number of other roads.
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