Anatomy of a ‘rain bomb’: scientists strive to understand phenomenon that caused Australia’s east coast floods

Australia’s 2022 floods have seen Brisbane’s Southbank hit by a ‘rain bomb’. Hotter atmospheric conditions and oceans are driving much heavier rainfalls, scientists say. Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

It was dry and sunny in Melbourne 10 days ago when Kimberley Reid was looking at images being spat out by a weather forecasting model – all isobars, arrows and splodges of orange.

The phenomenon forming in the atmosphere off Queensland’s coast – about 1500 kilometres (930 miles) north-east of Reid’s computer screen – was nothing remarkable yet, but the channels of moisture she saw in the pictures are the subject of her PhD.