.... and then the rains came.

Here in Brisbane, we have been enjoying  the fading end of ex tropical cyclone Oswald, which has been whipping up severe winds and dumping torrents of rain on us. Flood waters around Queensland are raising, and Brisbane is no exception.

It isn't as severe in Brisbane as it was in 2011, but things here have been a little bit rough. The high winds combined with the heavy rain, along with the unexpected addition of a series of tornadoes, has however made the last 36 hours quite entertaining.

So, I grabbed an on-hand typewriter an tapped out a typecast before I had breakfast this morning.

Pine river flooded rapidly as they dumped water from the dam, as the tide in the bay pushed a storm surge back up river. 

We crossed through this flooded section of the road yesterday before we came across an even deeper flooded road that was risky to cross.  Just for reference, the river is off to the left. That section to the right is a flooded gully.

... and then the rains came.

My suburb awash at about 11am....

Brisbane was lashed by a series of.... rather expected storms, yesterday afternoon. I say rather expected, because the forecast for the entire week had been for severe storms on Saturday. However, many of the locals have since vented their collective and self-righteous spleens because the B.O.M. hadn't sent them SMS storm warnings for the first severe session in the afternoon.

They most certainly issued warnings for the latter - and much more prolonged storm.

As the second storm approached, I set up my camera on the front deck to take a series of long exposures - in the hope of capturing some lightening. It missed a couple of dramatic moments unfortunately, but it did document the advancing of the storm quite effectively.

Take that... Lighting pole at the Rugby field!

A little after 9pm however, the strongest part of the storm hit. This forced me to quickly rush outside and grab my camera gear. As I retreated inside and quickly shut the windows to stop the now horizontal rain from coming in, the power died. Having anticipated this happening, there were already candles burning throughout the house. I also had been charging my mobile phone to make sure I still had contact with the rest of the world in the eventuality of the power failure.

So, what does one do when the power goes down?

You typecast of course!

 

The suburb dived into an eerie silence and darkness as the power went out. But the sky kept the world alight at night with lightening strikes.

 

Blog entry sitting on my typewriter - waiting to be scanned when the power came back on.

And then it was over....

Actually, not quite.

By the next morning I was awoken by the rumble of thunder once again rolling across the landscape. 

And then the third storm hit....

Not long after the storm subsided, another SMS warning arrived from the BOM warning us of the same kind of conditions that had been predicted the night before. By about mid-day the 4th (or was it 5th?) storm crashed over the city, once again turning streets to rivers.

 EDIT:

It is now 5:30pm, and from my front deck I can see another front coming up from the south of Brisbane. The BOM has issued another severe weather SMS warning.


EDIT 2: