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Woman, children rescued from roof

A woman and her four children have been rescued from a rooftop after Cyclone Oswald trapped them in Queensland's far north.

The Cairns Post reported the Atherton family spent the night in a four-wheel drive as rivers rose around them. The family, huddled together, had no provisions or mobile phone reception.

Police officer Sen-Constable Ben Tome said the father made the decision to try to cross the river to get help, leaving the family in the car.

The man walked 15km before having to cross a second river and another 10km before reaching a cattle property.

A helicopter was sent to rescue the woman and children. No injuries were reported.

A severe weather warning has been issued for people in the Peninsula and parts of the Gulf Country, Northern Tropical Coast and Tablelands and Herbert and Lower Burdekin forecast districts.

The ex-tropical cyclone has left a monsoon trough in its wake, along the east coast near Cairns.

The BOM says heavy rainfall is likely north of the monsoon trough, and is also expected to develop along the east coast southwards to about Townsville.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Brett Harrison says very heavy rain is being experienced across the far north region, particularly along the east coast.

"The rainfall totals got up over 300mm throughout parts of the north tropical coast region around the Innisfail and Tully areas," he told ABC radio.

"We can expect heavy rain to continue throughout the next few days with the monsoon trough."

Jan Devlin, who manages the community centre used as Kowanyama's evacuation centre, said the town appeared to have escaped any significant damage.

She said emergency services were yet to do a full inspection but the category one storm didn't seem too bad.

No one spent the night in the evacuation centre other than staff.

"There's a couple of trees down and lots of water but we're fine," she told AAP.

"There was a lot of rain and a lot of wind but it was only a category one."

Kowanyama Mayor Robert Holness told AAP it had been a "pretty quiet night" and he'd slept through the cyclone.
He said he was yet to go outside to look for any damage but wasn't expecting anything significant.