Weather News
Tennant Creek deluged with 'one-in-50-year' flood
Xavier La Canna, Sunday January 15, 2017 - 09:47 EDT
The normally dry town of Tennant Creek experienced a deluge on Friday night in what meteorologists said was a one-in-50-year flood.
Irena Edwards-Kelly, 26, said she appreciated the rain when it began, but she had now had enough.
"It is good rain and I was loving it, but it gets annoying," she said.
It was the highest floodwaters Ms Edwards-Kelly had ever seen in the town.
Senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology in Darwin, Graeme King, said the flooding was a significant event.
"It is a one-in-50-year type event," Mr King said.
He said the town experienced 70mm of rain in just 70 minutes from about 6:00pm on Friday night.
Monthly rainfall total exceeded
It came on top of strong rainfall in recent weeks that has turned parts of the normally arid centre of Australia green.
Tennant Creek has already experienced 200mm of rain this month, well above the average of 113mm.
Jeffrey Mclaughlin, 37, runs a lawn-mowing business in Tennant Creek and said the intense rain had caused grass to shoot up in the town.
"I can't keep up with the work," Mr Mclaughlin said.
"I cut grass last week and it is 50 centimetres high already."
Pene Curtis said the conditions were not just hot, but muggy, which she had never experienced in the town.
"We got such a deluge the drain just finds it hard to deal with," Ms Curtis said.
Nobody was injured in the flooding.
The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting more rain on the way for Tennant Creek, as tropical air from northern Australia meets a cooler trough from southern Australia.
- ABC
© ABC
2017
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