North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Mackay has already had a heap of rain before the storm hit ... looks like it will fall over the Fitzroy catchment, be interesting to see what happens.

Any culvert fishing down there ronje?

Peter Faust Dam may go the way of Awonga and Monduran after the 2010/11 events; which would be a real shame as it is/was carrying a huge number of big girls.

We had about 200mm last week as well so all the ingredients for a big flood are there.

The centre of the low is expected to go south now which will put it down the centre of the Fitzroy catchment for 3 days dumping lots rain.

The northern part of Fitzroy catchment (Isaacs and Connors rivers) rise in the high country just behind Sarina. Measuring point on Connors River jumped from 2m straight to 20m yesterday and showing no signs of changing trajectory. 15m is classed as a major flood there.

A couple of rainfall monitoring sites have gotten in excess of 750mm in the 36 hours. One site measured 211mm in 1 hour. Now the thought is that the gauge must be faulty but there's a couple of others close by with similar sorts of readings.

Fitzroy catchment has Comet and Nogoa Rivers from west forming the MacKenzie River.

Mackenzie meets up with Dawson from the south (Taroom area) which is also fed by Dee, Callide and Don Rivers.

Mackenzie then meets up with Isaacs and Connors from the north to form the Fitzroy about 200km upstream from Rocky.

If the waters from those upstream systems all reach Rocky at the same time, the impact will be nasty.

There's a s...load of water on its way already but it takes up to 3 weeks for floodwaters to arrive at times.

Awoonga is currently only 2 metres from spilling over so there'll be another mass escape of barra into the Boyne River this week. Last big escape in 2011 let about 100,000 big ones go (depending on who you talk to). Netters are banned from the Boyne until late April but there'll be another massacre.

Most of the barra dams will overflow with the big ones being Emerald (Fairbairn), Gladstone (Awoonga) and Gin Gin (Monduran). I don't fish impoundments but it seems that there's a lot of tourist dollars associated with those dams.

Eungella, Teemburra, and Kinchant up in behind Mackay and Peter Faust near Proserpine would have overflowed a couple of days ago with most of those barra on their way. Ditto with tourist $ in those too.

There's some culvert fishing here where the floodplain lagoons drain into river.

Sullo was right in the path of the eye and the land around Prossie is flat so susceptible to flooding from cows urinating. Biggest hurdle in the area would be power lines down. We'll probably hear from him when his power is sorted out.

Boys would have had an exciting ride in Airlie. Wonder how Shute Harbour went?

Debbie was a big storm in size although cat 4. I think that the huge eye resulted in BOM being unsure where the centre actually was at any given time.

Crikey Ron, that's some impressive rain figures. Fitzroy has such a big catchment, it will be interesting to watch this unfold.

Might be too much of a good thing.

I believe Mark Rolle had his boat at Airlie Beach/Shute Harbour. Dunno what happened yet.

I assume Sullo's family bunkered down under one of his jewie frames.

The rain figures are from the back of Mackay. One of those stations was 875mm in 36 hrs. Like somebody tipped a bucket of water on yr head.

Fitzroy is the largest catchment on the Aus east coast and 2nd to the Murray/Darling in those that enter the sea.

I'm not sure which is the largest Aus catchment, Murray/Darling or Lake Eyre/Cooper/Macintyre. Probably Lake Eyre by a short half head. Fitzy 3rd as I understand it.

Anyway, its 600km x 400 km.

If u draw a line across from Limmen Bight R to the mouth of the Vic River, everything above that would fit into the Fitzroy catchment system. Roper+Daly+Adelaide+Mary + part Vic + Alligators.

Imagine the Fitzroy catchment with the NT rainfall.

A big system indeed all coming out at one point.

I reckon the barrage gates will remain open here for the rest of the year.

A helluva flush!

Biggest wild barra I have seen were historic old black and white foters of Fitzroy fish.

I see on FB that Mark Rolle's boat at Airlie Beach is OK, others not so lucky.

Fair whack of rain falling now

NBN wrote:Peter Faust Dam may go the way of Awonga and Monduran after the 2010/11 events; which would be a real shame as it is/was carrying a huge number of big girls.

Not that much rain,didn't come up that much.Prossy copped a lot of damage,the beach had a lot protection from the mountains in the first half.We lost all the back windows in the first half,then all front sliding door and windows after the eye went over.Lost most of our contents.And one corner of the house is gone

Geese mate that's horrible, but good news that you're ok. Scary stuff!

Looks like it's going to be a big one in Rocky

Not that much rain,didn't come up that much.Prossy copped a lot of damage,the beach had a lot protection from the mountains in the first half.We lost all the back windows in the first half,then all front sliding door and windows after the eye went over.Lost most of our contents.And one corner of the house is gone

No one hurt by the sound, good! Rest can be fixed. Major headache tho. Hope you didn't lose irreplaceable items.

So few casualties from these big storms, must be Australia's good building codes??

No everyone was lucky however ... http://www.news.com.au/national/breakin ... a927e23038

Yep no one hurt here at our place,only person I heard injured was a guy sheltering in his bathroom when the wall caved in and he went threw his glass shower screen,might loose his arm.Not so lucky with the flooding down south.I think there's about 270 houses in the district that are unliveable,so only one injury pretty good. We put all our fotos,paperwork etc in watertight tubs while prepping. Will be glad to get power and net back on,hard on the eyes doing this on the fine lol.

glad to hear mostly ok there Sullo except for bits broken and missing in the house
it was a pretty big storm, I have quite a few friends a little further North, they got Nothing at Townsville, luckily, needed some rain up there though.
still very dry in North Qeensland.

Lots of stuff to do cleaning up after the floods, and more to come, been through it myself in Katherine.

Hope the Fitzroy doesn't go quite as high as expected, will know soon.

Fitzroy now predicted to reach 9m.

1918 @ 10.1

1954 @ 9.4

1991 @ 9.3

2011 @ 9.2 are the only ones bigger in 150 years.

River broke its banks upstream this morning when City gauge reached 7.6m.

Now water can spread out over floodplain 6km or so.

Even so there's enough water coming down to increase that extra surface area by another 1.4 m. Upstream Riverslea gauge peaked at 26.24m (86 ft) and its not here yet until Wed arvo.

I think we're lucky in that only about 1/2 the catchment got the rain.