Wild weather has once again thrown plenty of grey nomads travel plans into chaos, with heavy rain hitting multiple parts of the country.
The ABC reports that nearly half of Australia is on flood watch, with the deluge being triggered by a large, stagnant low-pressure system sitting over central Australia.
It is expected to deliver nearly a year’s worth of rain to some parts of the interior, but the broader system is also spreading wet and stormy conditions further south and east.
The ABC reports that the huge system, which can be seen on the satellite as a mass of spiralling clouds, has been spilling rain across multiple state borders to southern parts of the Northern Territory, south-western parts of Queensland, northern parts of South Australia and north-west NSW.
Heavy rain has brought challenging driving conditions. PIC: Arun Thomas / Pexels
Large parts of Victoria, including Melbourne, have been hit by huge amounts of precipitation, with reports that a tree fell on a car in Bendigo after 23mm of rain fell within 15 minutes.
With rain expected to continue until Friday for some areas of Central Australia, it will mean pretty much a week of downpours across certain inland spots … a very unusual occurrence.
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior forecaster, Angus Hines, told the ABC that this was far longer than the usual time period of a few days.
“It’s very uncommon that we’d see this prolonged spell of rain over those outback areas, and I think that’s reflected by just how much wet weather we’re seeing,” he said. “There’s nothing really coming through to push this out of the way at the moment, so it just kind of spins in place.”
The ongoing deluge has, of course, brought major disruptions on the roads, with flooding impacting a number of key routes, including the Stuart Highway, Barkly Highway, Victoria Highway, and the Buchanan Highway.
And, of course, some of the more iconic tracks like the Birdsville Track and Strzelecki Track have been hit hard, with both closed due to rain and flooding.
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