Maleny Weather

An extensive high pressure system in the lower Tasman Sea with a ridge extending along the east coast is mainly responsible for drawing northerly maritime monsoonal rains down on to the ranges. Total rainfall for the week ending 3.00pm Sunday is 300.6 mm, with more to come.

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Perth Drought Broken

The Bureau of Meteorology recorded 0.2 of a millimetre of rain in Perth overnight, ending the city’s second longest dry spell in history.
Up until yesterday there had been 78 days without rain, only six days short of the record dry spell of the summer of 1974-75.
The rain comes just after Perth’s hottest January in 48 years with an average temperature of 33.5 degrees.
Perth is on track for its hottest summer ever, with the temperature since December averaging 32 degrees

The highest February rainfall ever recorded at Maleny was in 1893 with 2733 mm, or over 109 inches, well in excess of the average annual rainfall.  In three days over 1715 mm of rainfall was recorded at Mooloolah On the 3^rd the highest 24 hours rainfall in Queensland was recorded at Crohamhurst with 907 mm. It is said the Obi-Obi Creek rose to an enormous height, reaching a point in Maple Street above Coral Street, which would have been submerged.

It was during this tropical storm that Steamer SS Dicky was shipwrecked on a Caloundra beach, to be named after her. The ship sailed from Rockhampton and as it arrived to clear Caloundra Head it met lashing rain and cyclonic winds that sent the ship on her beam ends.  Captain James Beattie was force to beach the ship to avoid hitting the rocks off Moffat Beach. On 4^th February 1893 at 10.35 am the ship grounded stern first on the beach, where her ribs and keel until quite recently were a tourist attraction.

The tropical storm continued the following day when the northern half of Indooroopilly Rail Bridge was washed away and part of the Victoria Bridge, spanning the Brisbane River, collapsed