Residents of south-east Queensland are being told to remain vigilant after days of heavy rain saw multiple flood alerts issued across the region. Watch and act warnings are in place this morning for parts of Western Downs and South Burnett.
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00:00This system that's triggered so many of these showers and thunderstorms that have lashed
00:06the southeast is starting to move north.
00:08We're expecting areas in the north and western parts of the state to be impacted by rainfall
00:13throughout today, but the concern is that this downpour in the southeast has left a
00:18significant mark.
00:19There are now emergency watch and act alerts that have been issued for, as you mentioned,
00:23the South Burnett and Western Downs region.
00:26Local councils have said that the main concern is that days of intense rainfall have left
00:31catchments incredibly saturated and as well, roads have been inundated and cut off.
00:36If you look online to the Queensland Traffic website, there are dozens of road closures
00:40in place due to that flash flooding.
00:42Now, the police have also said that they've issued text message alerts to residents in
00:46those regions that are impacted.
00:48They're urging residents to prepare to leave if that water level does continue to rise.
00:53Of course, there is that major flood level warning that's in place for the Logan River
00:58at Bow Desert.
00:59That peak is expected to hit sometime this morning and there is also still a moderate
01:03flood warning that's in place, that's been in place for days for the Mary River as well.
01:08Now, as for SES call outs, in the last 24 hours there's been more than 145 call outs
01:13for assistance.
01:14A lot of those have been concentrated to the Brisbane and Moreton Bay region and that's
01:18for issues like tarping as well as sandbagging.
01:21We've also heard from the South Burnett Region's Mayor, Donita Potter, who says that rain,
01:26the intensity of the rainfall that we've seen in the last few days, they haven't seen this
01:29for quite some time.
01:32There's people there that have got water that they've sort of cut off and they had not seen,
01:37and we're talking people for over 50 years that haven't seen the water that we've seen
01:43in this last couple of days.
01:45Our dams are full, they're all spilling over.
01:49It's really quite incredible to see.
01:51This is more water, I think, I would think this is more water than what we've had in
01:552011 floods.
01:58But Ari, we do have some reprieve for residents in the South East.
02:03Yeah, that's certainly right, Ruby.
02:06So this southerly that pushed a lot of these thunderstorms and showers here to the South
02:10East has also pushed away the moist air flow offshore, so that is sort of settling conditions
02:16here in the South East.
02:17As you can see here in Brisbane, it has cleared up significantly.
02:20It looks very different to what it did 24 hours ago.
02:23We are expecting conditions to get drier as we head into the weekend.
02:26The main concern now is going to be a tropical low that could potentially develop in the
02:31Coral Sea from tomorrow.
02:33While it might not develop into a tropical cyclone, it is threatening to bring a lot
02:37of rain to communities in the far north, so residents are being told to brace for that.
02:41Now the forecast for the remainder of December in the South East does look a lot more settled
02:45and dry.
02:46However, there is that flood risk that looks likely to return as we head into the new year.