Fort Lauderdale experienced a historic rainfall event this week. As low pressure developed across the northern Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday morning, a warm front lifted slowly north across southern Florida, bringing moderate rainfall through the early afternoon.
Multiple slow-moving supercell thunderstorms developed, each following similar tracks across the area. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport provisionally measured 25.91in (65.8cm) of rainfall during the 24 hours to 7am on Thursday, mostly falling within 12 hours. The previous daily rainfall total at the travel hub was 14.59in in 1979.
Daily rainfall exceeding 10in fell across a swath of south-eastern Broward County and north-eastern Miami-Dade County triggering widespread flooding, with reports of stranded vehicles, inundated roads and buildings. At the time of writing, no casualties had been reported.
The flooding caused Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport to halt operations on Wednesday afternoon until 5am Friday. However, further heavy rain on Thursday hampered efforts to recover from the deluge.
On the other side of the world, Severe Tropical Cyclone Ilsa made landfall as a category 5 storm on Thursday night. This is equivalent to a category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale used in the North Atlantic and the northern Pacific east of the dateline.
Ilsa started as a tropical low off Indonesia on 5 April. It tracked south-west over the next few days and developed into a tropical cyclone. Ilsa then underwent rapid intensification to become a category 5 storm on Wednesday.
After veering south-east, the storm made landfall east of Port Hedland in Australia. Shortly before reaching the mainland, a 180mph gust was registered on Bedout Island before the weather station stopped recording.
