RAIN DANCE: Olymbia Stana, 6, wasn't the least bit concerned by the torrential rain and flash flooding that will likely to hit Cairns in the coming days as she danced in yesterday's doupour on Abbott St. Picture: Tom Lee Source: Cairns Post
AUTHORITIES are warning of flash flooding as far south as Mackay as the remnants of the short-lived Cyclone Oswald move across north Queensland.
Cyclone Oswald, packing wind gusts of up to 85km/h, hit the coast as a category 1 storm near Kowanyama on western Cape York last night, pounding remote Aboriginal communities and shutting down the Weipa port.
Weather bureau officials downgraded the system to a tropical low as it moved inland but warned the more heavily populated areas of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay were likely to be hit by torrential rain in the coming days. There are some expectations of falls of up to 700mm.
The Port Douglas region recorded nearly 200mm in just two hours yesterday.
Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Bill O'Connor said the remnants of the cyclone had merged in a "dumbbell effect", with another low over Flinders Reef near Cairns turning into an elongated trough of instability that would move south towards Mackay.
Disaster officials warn of widespread flooding across the north in the aftermath of Cyclone Oswald.
"Communities on Cape York are isolated and roads impassable, but airports are still open," said Police Acting Superintendent Rhys Newton, of Cairns Disaster group.
Emergency Management Queensland's Wayne Coutts praised locals for having taken the cyclone threat seriously.
Some locals danced in the rain yesterday to celebrate the first deluge of the late Wet Season in the tropics.
In Kowanyama, Viv Sinnamon said the 1200-strong community had battened down for the cyclone, shut down tourist camps and stockpiled food, supplies and diesel.
"We live for this stuff," Mr Sinnamon said.
"Every year we get the equivalent of the 2011 Rockhampton floods in the Mitchell River catchment, so we can handle a bit of wind and water."
Beef cattle producers are worried after months of bushfires and little fodder, the deluge will wreak havoc with weak stock.
Cattle station owner Kylie Camp, of Floraville Downs near Burketown, said rivers and creeks are rising in the first signs of a break in the wet season.
Yesterday she drove to Mount Isa, 460km south, to put her four children on a bus to boarding school in Toowoomba and Cairns before the Gulf country gets cut off for the next several months by floodwaters.
"It'll be an empty nest for the first time in my 20 years of home tutoring as a mum and governess," Mrs Camp said.
"So we didn't want those kids to miss the bus and get stuck here."
"This is the calving season, and when the cattle are weak, they get drowned or bogged or pneumonia, if we get a big deluge they could be in all sorts of trouble.
"Out here, it is feast or famine."
In the west in and around Chinchilla, Charley's Creek and the Condamine River were slowly subsiding below minor flood levels yesterday after a flood peak of 4.5m on Sunday.
Talwood, on the western Darling Downs, is preparing for a week of flooding, with the Weir River still rising and expected to peak at moderate flood levels by the weekend.
In Brisbane, the forecast for the week is for temperatures in the high 20s, mostly fine and possible showers.
Later this week, the rural towns of Nindigully, Flinton, and Thallon are also likely to be flooded after 150mm was dumped on the headwaters.
But flooding is predicted to be half-a-metre below 4m-high level in the January, 2011 flood.
In Brisbane, the forecast for the week is for an average temperature in the high 20s, mostly fine and possible showers.
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