The record-breaking rain over Australia’s east coast has flooded towns and cities in Queensland and New South Wales, submerging thousands of homes and leaving at least 13 people dead.
Thirty evacuation orders remained in place across the northern rivers region on Wednesday morning, while hundreds of vehicles remained stranded on the M1 highway between Ballina and Tweed Heads.
Here, you can see maps and charts that show the extent of the extreme rainfall and flooding-affected areas.
The first set of maps show flooded areas detected by satellite, overlaid on normal, pre-flood satellite images of the towns and cities, starting with a Lismore flood map.
Here’s the Brisbane flood map, zoomed in to show the worst-affected areas:
Here’s a Gympie flood map showing an overview of flooding in the area:
This flood map of eastern Australia shows the total rainfall up to 28 February, with circles to indicate flooding-affected areas:
The rainfall in Queensland has occurred on an unprecedented scale in some areas. Brisbane, for example, has had the wettest summer on record, with rainfall data going back to 1899 at the Alderley meteorological station.
The following chart shows how the cumulative rainfall for 2021-22 compares to the long-term averages. The purple line indicates the divide between the wettest years (the top 10% of years by total rainfall) and wetter than average years, so if the red line for 2021-22 goes above this, it indicates an unusually high level of rainfall.
This chart shows the river height in key areas affected by flooding, and how they compare to height markers that indicate minor, moderate and major flooding:
We will update this page with new data and information as it becomes available.
