Aussie town cops a year's worth of rain in one night
A torrential downpour has dropped almost a year’s worth of rain on a town in Western Australia.
Exmouth, on the state’s north west cape, is a popular holiday destination due to its close proximity to Ningaloo Reef.
The town typically sees around 250mm of rain annually, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, but a solid night of rain saw falls as high as 218mm in some parts.
Rusty Ellis, vice commander of Marine Rescue Exmouth, told ABC News he was woken up by the rain.
"I've never seen that much rain before in one hit," he said.
"We've had reports of 193mm at the northern end of town and at the southern end of town there was one report of 218mm.
"We're up around 250mm total for the last couple of days.”
Jaw-dropping aerial photos show the extent of flooding, with large swathes of land covered in muddied water.
The floodwater snakes out to sea, turning the coastline brown and clashing with the usually clear blue seas.
The only road in and out of town, Minilya-Exmouth Road, was almost cut off during the night, Perth Now reported.
“The amount we see in a whole year, we had in one night,” local photographer Violet Brosig told the publication.
She said despite the town needing a major cleanup, the locals are “really happy” to see such a huge amount of rain.
BOM recorded small amounts of rainfall for nearby Learmonth starting on Tuesday night, which increased heavily around 3am this morning.
Between 25mm and 30mm of rain fell every hour from 3am until 9am.
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