After ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred made landfall on Australia’s coast, thousands across New South Wales and Queensland sheltered from the wild weather, recording hundreds of millimetres of rain.
This map shows the total rainfall at weather stations over the past seven days. A darker shade of purple indicates higher rainfall.
By Sunday 9.15am AEST, several river systems in northern NSW and southern Queensland had flood warnings, including the Wilsons river at Lismore, the Tweed, the Richmond and other rivers in northern NSW, as well as a number of rivers in south-eastern Queensland, including the Logan and Bremer.
This map shows the areas either at risk from by flooding and storm conditions, or those affected by flooding and storms:
We can see the scale of this rain by comparing it with historical records. Many of these areas had previously been experiencing a dry-ish year. Before the cyclone-induced rain, weather stations in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast had recorded cumulative rainfalls at less than half (median) of historic levels.
You can explore more in the chart below. It will be periodically updated throughout the weekend.
Here we’re tracking the wind speeds at five locations in northern NSW and southern Queensland:
Notes and methods:
Historic rain levels calculated using the Bureau of Meteorology’s long-run climate data for each weather station
Historic rain data was grouped by the day of the year before the 10th and 90th percentile were calculated
Rain records for 29 February have been removed from the data to ensure consistency
Read more of Guardian Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Alfred coverage:
