BAMOS Autumn 2022
6
News
Special climate statement
Bureau of Meteorology
Floods devastated QLD and NSW communities earlier this year . Source : Twitter .
The Bureau has published a formal record of the extreme rainfall and flooding in south-east Queensland and eastern New South Wales , documenting the 22 February to 9 March 2022 event in Special Climate Statement 76 .
The Bureau ' s special climate statements provide detailed summaries of significant weather and climate events that impact Australians .
Special Climate Statement 76 has details of the recent event including comparisons with previous rainfall records and flood levels .
More information is in the statement including :
• several rainfall records were broken with more than 50 sites recording over one metre of rainfall in one week
• flash flooding and riverine flooding extended from Maryborough in Queensland to Grafton in New South Wales
• following 2 years of La Niña conditions , the rain fell on catchments where water storages and river levels were high and soils were already saturated
• the intense and sustained rainfall resulted in major flooding across many catchments in south-east Queensland and eastern New South Wales
• the rainfall was the result of a combination of weather systems over eastern Australia and the Tasman Sea , where a large volume of humid tropical air moving onshore over eastern Australia was lifted in the atmosphere to produce heavy rain and thunderstorms .
This Special Climate Statement has been added to an archive of Special Climate Statements dating back more than 15 years , providing easy access to data and information .