Aussie town lashed with a month's worth of rain in just 15 minutes
Residents of Broken Hill have celebrated as a thunderstorm dumped more than a month’s worth of rainfall in 15 minutes, drenching the far west NSW town.
Happy locals desperate for rain shared photos of flooded streets on social media after the outback town copped 33mm of rainfall on Saturday, more than it received over six months last year.
“It’s a good day for a flood in Argent Street. Sandbagging the shop and still smiling,” clothing store Sitting Bull shared on Instagram.
“Never did rushing water and mud look so gloriously ochre-red together ... The blue sky seems to be a smiling observer,” another local wrote on Twitter.
Jake Phillips from the Bureau of Meteorology told the ABC the town copped just over 30mm of rain on Saturday.
“That rainfall at Broken Hill is quite notable because a large amount of it fell in the space of about 15 or 20 minutes,” he said.
NSW SES reported 105 call-outs for help in Broken Hill and the surrounding areas, including two flood rescues, collapsed ceilings and trees down.
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Broken Hill fire station officer Don Peters told ABC the rainfall was a first for him but kept his crew busy with six call-outs by the early afternoon and flooding at the station itself.
When it rains it pours in #BrokenHill! pic.twitter.com/4mmyeLb0Mh
— Michael Cutting (@cutabove77) September 19, 2020
"I've been here five-and-a-half years and I've never seen rain like this before,” he said.
"It makes it quite exciting for us. We don't mind doing it, we enjoy it.”
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the far west of NSW but expected the rainfall to weaken as it headed towards Sydney on Sunday morning.
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