After the disappointment of receiving almost no rain from Tropical Cyclone Debbie at the end of March and a dry April, Charters Towers producers are excitedly reporting good falls from this week’s rain system.
Kylie Stretton epitomised the excitement being felt, announcing on the Who Got the Rain Facebook page on Friday morning that they’d received 107mm at Clancella Downs, 20 kilometres south of Charters Towers.
“Woo hoo, the records are tumbling this year,” she said. “Remember how I was excited to crack the 100mm mark in March?
“We've just done that in two days – 80mm for yesterday which has been our biggest day total for about three and a half years, plus 27mm on Wednesday.
“And still raining!”
Kylie said the largest concentration appeared to be south east of them, noting that Chippendale Station had received 165mm yesterday afternoon, with rain still falling.
Samantha Reid told the WGTR page there had been 154mm for the last 24 hours at Calcium, west of Townsville, and 214mm all up.
”We are more than happy with our rain,” Kylie said. “We’ve been looking after our grass in the drought, doing lots of high density grazing and resting, so it should green right up.”
There had been only one cold day prior to the rain so she expected the ground to be holding its warmth to aid growth.
The shire retained its drought status when the review took place at the end of April, and Kylie said their season had been very late.
“On Valentine’s Day we had dead grass – that’s unheard of.”
She said falls appeared to peter out further west and south west, citing her parents at Homestead tipping out 50mm, and a producer 60km further down the Charters Towers-Clermont Road, who’d had 60mm.
Townsville records
Jayson Johns told the Who Got the Rain Facebook page on Friday morning that the city was continuing to smash its rainfall average of 31.7mm for May.
At the time of writing, Townsville Airport had received 151.6mm, in a 21 hour period on Thursday.
Jayson said Townsville’s wettest May on record was 180.8mm in 1977.
He also said rainfall figures had exceeded the 100mm mark since 9am over the Ross Dam catchment.
“This is a step in the right direction for our water supply.”
Wayne Flintham reported in from the Lansdown Research Station in the Woodstock/Calcium region, saying he’d had 200mm over two days and it was still raining gently.
Lisa Hutchinson from Fifty Fifty at Gumlu had had 171mm and it was still raining.
“It’s a very different year weatherwise,” she said.
It was a similar story for Kada Jodrell at Delaym Station at Mingela, whose 141mm on Thursday made for a total of 200mm since Wednesday afternoon.
Further west, Jean Haynes was reporting 87mm of “wonderful” rain at Kutchera Station, Georgetown over the past two days, while Jane Kidd at Tabletop Station at Croydon had another 60mm on Thursday night to bring her total to 108mm.