It’s official: Logan received more rain over the two weeks of the February/March floods than ever before, breaking 50-year records.
There was more rain than the 1974 floods, and more rain in a single day than ever before at New Beith.
And there’s more to come. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has revealed there is an “increased risk” of more widespread flooding this winter.
“Based on our outlooks we are expecting to have a wetter than usual winter across pretty much most of inland and Eastern Australia including around the Logan City area,” BOM senior climatologist Simon Grainger said.
A Special Climate Statement, released by the bureau last week, confirmed that New Beith broke a 50-year-old record for single-day rainfall, while the Logan-Albert River catchment had its wettest seven-day and 14-day period since BOM’s national records began in 1900.
Rains were from February 22 to March 9.
Mr Grainger said the bureau’s New Beith gauge reached a daily total of 180mm of rain, well above the previous record of 145.5mm from February 1972.
“New Beith site recorded at least 100mm over four consecutive days at the end of February and that had never previously been recorded at that site,” he said.
“One of the most significant aspects of that event actually was that there was prolonged rainfall over Logan City and southeast Queensland.
“Previously there had only been two days in a row with over 100mm, whereas this time there were four.”
Mr Grainger said the total rainfall over seven days in the Logan-Albert catchment was higher than the January 1974 floods in Brisbane and Ipswich and there was a high chance we could see flooding again soon.
“The fooding along the Logan River in February this year was the highest it’s been since the January 1974 floods and higher than in March 2017 from ex-tropical cyclone Debbie,” he said.
“There’s an increased risk of flooding because of the combination of a wetter than usual outlook and already existing wet landscape.”
“So any more rain that will fall is going to fall on a landscape that’s already wet from the rain in February and March, and the already high water storages as well.”
Another special report from the BOM released on Wednesday linked higher-than-normal rainfall to climate change.
“As the climate warms, heavy rainfall events are expected to continue to become more intense,” the report said.
