The system started to cause havoc Feb 22 on the ironically named Sunshine Coast where the low first formed just off of the coast,just north of Brisbane. It was clear from the beginning this was a serious weather event.

The first problem is it was a cyclone basically – a rotating low powerful enough to draw in significant moisture - but they’re not called that in Aus once they form below the 60 degree lateral. They’re called East Coast Lows instead but nobody even knows that name. For fuck’s sake – call them Cyclones. Dangerous storms need dangerous names.

The other problem with not calling them cyclones is there was no forecast track. That’s crazy. A forecast track is something people can relate to - you can loop it on the news - know exactly who’s in the firing line.

There was also no ‘day-off’ declared for anywhere. There were days off galore after it struck of course coz people were swamped, but no official warning. There were no evacuations prior to the event - not even an SMS warning - nothing. Later authorities would say it was “impossible to predict” and “unprecedented” but that’s total crap.
you could see it coming from 5 days away with a path of destruction along the way
it may have been record breaking but it wasn’t unprecedented - we had floods here a little over a year ago from the same kind of system.

The initial forecast when it first formed was heavy rain north of here – nothing too alarming – 30-60mm – meant to move down the coast/hinterland – impact us the following two days with 2X 20-60’s. Then it‘d fine-up for several days.

I knew from last year that that can balloon out, so did the mowing while I could still get down to the tree paddock, then the shopping the next day (first day of rain here) in a bigger town, 40 minutes drive away. That town, Lismore, is now underwater.
The next day there was more rain around the 100mm mark in my neck of the woods – that’s a lot, but doable. The creek broke its banks for a few hours in one section, nothing serious.

Meanwhile on the Sunshine Coast, they were exceeding forecasts by a wide margin - 700-800 mm in the catchment areas – accumulating over two days. Furthermore, radar showed the system had barely moved overnight. That’s a big red flag.

These low pressure systems usually kiss the east coast then re-curve down to NZ’s south west coast – they are known to pack a punch. People blame the Low but it’s just doing what it does – it’s the High pressure’s fault. A stationary High to the south east – resulting in the dreaded stalled system. If you have one day of 300+ rainfall, you’ve got problems – two days of that is a guaranteed disaster.

Aus is, scandalously, not equipped to deal with this level of rain. There are not the industrial strength drains that you see everywhere in Taiwan - i don't know why. It’s also flatter – which is good and bad – good that you won’t get mudslides usually – the biggest killers in weather events – but bad in terms of water taking longer to run off and spreading out, widening the flood zone.

The damage on the Sunshine Coast was severe. Flooding, a train derailed (a freight train – no one hurt somehow – washed off the tracks), boats, houseboats washed down river, a couple of drownings.

Then it was Brisbane’s turn – same deal – worse if anything. Again, huge 7-800 per day falls in the mountains – over 500 per day in many places - large regions accumulating 1000+, widespread flooding, 6 more dead. The pattern was a lead-in day of big rain, then the mother-lode the following day. The old one-two.

There was some media coverage but it was weird it was not a bigger deal. Considering the over-the-top safety-watch-it stuff with Covid, there seemed very little concern about an unfolding natural disaster. Apart from watching the radar, I found Twitter was a better info source – affected people reporting – uploading pics.

Meanwhile, in northern NSW, we were getting steady feed-out rain from the system but crunch-time kept getting delayed, and going up, first to 50-150, then, the night before, it jumped to 150-250. Turned out it was still a huge underestimation. Which is strange coz it ended up being a carbon copy of what it had been over the previous 4-5 days, slightly more intense.