November Rain

I have posted any number of photos of the Barwon in pleasant, sunny weather.  So since Geelong currently appears to be having its largest fall of rain in a 24 hour period for some time, I thought I might document this with some photos of a rain-soaked Barwon River and a few statistics.

Barwon River at Swanston Street

I looked at rainfall and its effect on the river in a  previous post so I won't repeat myself, but will note that 75-150mm of rain over a 1-3 day period can cause flooding. At the present time, the Geelong weather station at the racecourse (newly opened in June to replace the one at Geelong Airport) has recorded more than 85mm of rain, however there has been no flood warning issued for the Barwon, Leigh or Moorabool Rivers, so I can only assume that this is because there has not been a similar amount of rain along the rest of the river course. The weather station at Mt Gellibrand for example recorded only 19.2mm in the same 24 hour period. As a further indication of local variation, my own rain gauge which is less than 2.5km from the racecourse received 77mm.

Barwon River at Princes Bridge, Newtown

River height data is likewise unimpressive. The Barwon through Geelong has risen by about 30cm across the course of the day, but there have been no rises recorded at any of the other points of measurement further upstream. There are flood warnings current for the east of the state, and all parts of the state recorded a significant amount of rain, however the falls in the Geelong region today appear to have been localised.

Barwon River at Queen's Park

The highest recorded single daily rainfall for Geelong to the present time was up to 9am on 27th January, 2005 when 100mm fell in a very short time period unlike today's constant rain. This huge downpour actually occurred on the afternoon of 26th, causing flash-flooding and mayhem as I recall.
For the month of November, the highest daily rainfall on record is 50.6mm. This fell on 22nd November, 1988, so it looks rather like that record has just been rather substantially rewritten.
For anyone wanting to look further, much of this information came from the Bureau of Meteorology website which is the keeper of all stats wet, windy or sunny. So now that the sun is up - well, sort of - the rain has cleared, 9am has passed and the official result is in, I will take another peek myself (drumroll please):
the Geelong Racecourse weather station recorded a daily rainfall total for 26th November of 89.8mm with almost 70mm of that falling between 11:30am and 6pm yesterday including a half hour period from 1:30-2pm where 15.8mm fell.