IMERG Sees Record Australia Rainfall

Over the past week extreme rainfall has drenched northeastern Australia. This is the heaviest rainfall in that area since tropical cyclone Debbie hit Queensland Australia in late March. Much of the recent extremely heavy rainfall was due to storms associated with a trough of low pressure slowly moving over northeastern Queensland from the Coral Sea. More than 100mm (3.9 inches) of rain in 24 hours was reported near Townsville in northern Queensland. A trough of low pressure moving eastward from central Australia has also been encroaching into western Queensland. 

IMERG Sees Record Australia Rainfall

This analysis of rainfall over northeastern Australia was performed at Goddard Space Flight Center using near real-time data from NASA's Integrated Multi-satelliE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG). It shows an estimate of total precipitation accumulation over Queensland from May 17-19, 2017. IMERG total rainfall estimates indicate that up to 374 mm (14.5 inches) fell near the Queensland coast in this short period. IMERG rainfall totals in this analysis have been adjusted to reflect observed values in other similar extreme rainfall events. 

IMERG sees record rainfall in Australia

Images and caption by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC)