{"id":14205,"date":"2026-05-19T08:25:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T08:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/14205\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T08:25:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T08:25:22","slug":"rainfall-more-than-double-forecast-drenches-seq-premier-calls-for-bom-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/14205\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainfall ‘more than double’ forecast drenches SEQ, premier calls for BOM improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnny Simpson was among many Gold Coasters caught off guard after 23-year May rainfall records were smashed, drenching suburbs from the coastline to the hinterland.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t have any warning about the rainfall and it just came that quick,” he said.<\/p>\n

The president of the Parkwood Sharks Rugby League Club said the northern Gold Coast clubhouse was inundated with floodwater as the rain poured down on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) had forecast falls between 60 and 80 millimetres across the region on Monday.<\/p>\n

Instead, several Gold Coast locations recorded the most rain in a 24-hour period in May since 2003.<\/p>\n

The BOM has since said two weather systems \u2014 a rainband and a coastal trough \u2014 combined on Monday to deliver the deluge.<\/p>\n

\"Floodwater<\/p>\n

Parkwood Sharks Rugby League Club members and volunteers worked for hours to remove floodwaters from the clubhouse. (Supplied: Parkwood Sharks Rugby League Club)<\/p>\n

Mr Simpson said volunteers and community supporters did what they could to salvage equipment and minimise the damage as the water continued rising.<\/p>\n

“A lot of new equipment that we’ve only just received this year has been damaged \u2026 and the clubhouse itself it (the damage) is going to be pretty extensive.<\/p>\n

“I’d say all the walls will need stripping back and checking.”<\/p>\n

‘Not an exact science’<\/p>\n

Mudgeeraba resident Barry Lubke had been anticipating falls between 10 and 60mm, but saw much more than that in his backyard rain gauge.<\/p>\n

“I measured it this morning and we’ve had 133 altogether,” Mr Lubke said.<\/p>\n

“It’s twice what the BOM said, but when you’re predicting weather, it’s not an exact science is it?”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mr Lubke says he saw totals more than double in his personal rain gauge in the Gold Coast hinterland. (ABC Gold Coast: Mark Rigby)<\/p>\n

At the nearby showgrounds, barista Tiffany Leihn said she keeps watch on what the bureau forecasts but had not anticipated the heavy falls.<\/p>\n

She said floodwaters from the swollen creek nearby had started to rise on Monday while she was packing down the coffee van for the day.<\/p>\n

Is predicting extreme rain becoming harder?<\/a><\/p>\n

As communities in Queensland reel from yet another round of devastating rain and floods, which caught people by surprise, it prompts the question: Is forecasting extreme rainfall getting harder?<\/p>\n

“You kind of have to [keep an eye on the radar], especially around here, it does come up quite fast,” Ms Leihne said.<\/p>\n

“As soon as that water starts coming up, we have to get out of here pretty fast.”<\/p>\n

As she arrived to work on Tuesday she was met with debris left behind as the water receded.<\/p>\n

“100mm plus, that’s a big impact, we have to be really cautious.”<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Ms Leihn was not sure if she would be able to access work today after heavy falls throughout Monday.<\/p>\n

Gold Coast City councillor Glenn Tozer said parts of the hinterland, west of the city, had recorded “close on 200mm over 24 hours”.<\/p>\n

“That’s a lot more than what we were to expect,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Ultimately it resulted in some pretty significant and dangerous events on roads, in creek areas and particularly causeways.”<\/p>\n

While he accepted the BOM was dealing with separate weather systems that converged to create the deluge, Cr Tozer said Gold Coast residents had a right to feel let down by the lack of warning.<\/p>\n

“Our community is generally very resilient when these sort of things happen,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But we were a bit frustrated to hear that the Bureau of Meteorology didn’t foresee some of that (rainfall).”BOM advice guides ‘life and death decisions’, premier says<\/p>\n

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli reiterated calls for the federal government to continue its investment in the weather bureau, in a bid to improve accuracy of forecasts.<\/p>\n

\"Queensland<\/p>\n

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli wants to see greater investment in the BOM. (ABC News: Lucas Hill)<\/p>\n

“As a state and local government, we have to make decisions that are about life and death based on the information that we get,” he said.<\/p>\n

“That’s why we ask for that investment in things like radars, like flood gauges, things that are important.”<\/p>\n

BOM senior forecaster Felim Hanniffy said Monday’s rain event was significant but six-hourly totals did not reach the threshold to be classified as heavy.<\/p>\n

“In order to quantify for a warning we’re looking at six-hourly totals in excess of 140 millimetres for areas of the Gold Coast,” Mr Hanniffy said.<\/p>\n

“Though the totals were significant, they were more due to significant moderate rain, rather than what would be classified as heavy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Simpson was among many Gold Coasters caught off guard after 23-year May rainfall records were smashed, drenching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,5408,14595,14596,14597,317,212,4442,14594,338],"class_list":["post-14205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-bureau-of-meteorology","tag-damage","tag-gold-coast-city-council","tag-parkwood-sharks","tag-premier","tag-queensland","tag-rain","tag-warnings","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}