As ex-cyclone drenches north, thunderstorm risk reaches Brisbane

3 hours ago 1

Communities are bracing for “life-threatening flash flooding” as the remnants of ex-cyclone Koji move westward across Queensland’s north, threatening regions still recovering from record rain in the new year.

Koji was declared a cyclone on Saturday evening, and had been expected to cross the coast as a category 2 storm.

In the early hours of Sunday it was downgraded to category 1, then weakened below tropical cyclone intensity as it crossed the coast between Ayr and Bowen about 10am.

Early on Monday, the Bureau of Meteorology issued warnings for intense rainfall and flash flooding in inland regions between Mackay and Gladstone.

Meteorologist Christie Johnson said the state’s south-east would probably receive scattered thunderstorms, which would centre on the Sunshine Coast hinterland region and travel south through the week.

“That risk of severe thunderstorms [on Tuesday] extends down to Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and maybe even into the Northern Rivers in New South Wales and into parts of the Darling Downs as well,” she said.

The weather bureau said flash flooding posed the biggest risk.

About six rivers in Central and North Queensland were expected to flood in coming days, including the Connors and Isaac rivers, which the weather bureau predicted would exceed flood levels experienced during ex-tropical cyclone Oswald.

Johnson said the main concern was flash flooding, rather than swollen rivers, and the storm moving west across the week, which would bring rain to areas still recovering from flooding.

“It’ll make its way into the Northern Territory, and potentially, if it even manages to keep itself intact, it might reach as far as the Kimberley,” she said.

“We’ve got a sort of 10 per cent to 15 per cent chance that if it does reach the waters off the north coast of Western Australia, it could actually redevelop into a cyclone.”

Heavy rain and high wind lashes North Queensland as the remnants of the former cyclone Koji hammer the coast.

She said some of the heaviest rainfall overnight on Sunday was inland of Rockhampton, such as in the township of Clermont, which received about 25 per cent of its average annual rainfall in 12 hours.

“We’ve seen quite a lot of heavy rainfall around that part of the world, including some that are definitely breaching the heavy rainfall thresholds,” Johnson said.

She said flash flooding and swollen rivers were threatening Yatton, a major cattle farming property inland of Rockhampton.

In Bowen, Premier David Crisafulli said government disaster response efforts were dropping medicine and supplies to cattle in western Queensland regions, where more than 40,000 animals had already been lost this year.

The Bureau of Meteorology urged inland regions between Mackay and Gladstone to brace for flash flooding brought on by ex-tropical cyclone Koji.

“There’s the risk of heavy rain – Queenslanders know how to handle that, we are a very disaster-resilient state,” he said.

Crisafulli praised local communities for their preparedness that he said had meant no lives had so far been lost as the storm made landfall.

Five people were rescued by SES overnight on Sunday, and 158 requests for help were made by Monday morning.

A spokesperson for Queensland police said 60 additional SES personnel had been deployed in the most affected regions.

The premier said communities were bouncing back quickly from heavy winds and rainfall brought on by the extreme weather system as it made landfall.

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