Brisbane and Queensland Floods: Should We Avoid Living There?

As most of you will know, last year’s floods were as a result of us being in the middle of a very strong La Niña event. When she is around, it rains a lot. The opposite of a La Niña is an El Niño. When he is around, Australia can go into drought.

I explained it all very briefly in my post called The Australian Climate: El Niño and La Niña. That was written in August 2009 when we were definitely having an El Niño. Despite it being winter, temperatures were hitting 36°C.

Ah, those were the days.

For a while, we weren’t quite sure what we were going to get in 2012, an El Niño or a La Niña.

If you read my post from January 25th this year called Becoming an Australian Citizen, you will probably have worked out that we are in fact in a La Niña. Brisbane was again being bashed by rain reminiscent of the previous year’s floods.

This was what was happening around a week ago…..

Bundaberg, Gold Coast and Burpengary

But since then we have had some glorious weather, temperatures have been around 30°C and it’s stopped raining.

Except it hasn’t really stopped raining, the rain just moved on.

As the weathermen said at the end of the above video, he expected the rains to move west. They did…

St George

Roma, Moree and Mitchell.

All of these towns are around 500 km west of Brisbane, with Roma and Mitchell being slightly North of us, St George’s directly to our west and Moree slightly to our south just over the border in the state of New South Wales.

Brisbane: Too Wet?

Lately, I’ve been getting emails from people who have been thinking of moving to Brisbane, but now think it’s just too wet.

So, should Brisbane or even Queensland be avoided?

Let’s start with Queensland. It’s a big place. As my page about Queensland says, “If it were a country in its own right, it would be the 18th biggest in the world, just behind Libya. The UK could fit into it over 7 times and it is the same size as America’s biggest state, Alaska.

Not everywhere in Queensland is prone to flooding, but some places certainly are. I believe all of the areas mentioned in the above videos have been flooded once or twice before over the last couple of years.

So a bit of research before you decide where you want to settle down would not go amiss.

And what of Brisbane?

Brisbane is subtropical. As such, we get relatively warm winters, to the extent where I wouldn’t call it winter at all, and hot summers. But we can get a lot of rain in the summer, or we can get drought.

It’s all down to whoever is in charge; La Niña or El Niño.

I have now lived in Brisbane for over four years and I wouldn’t go back to the English weather for all the tea in China. And remember, for two of those years Queensland has had some of their worst rainfalls in living memory.

So no, Brisbane isn’t to be avoided. Just do your research before you choose which house you buy and where.

Avoid buying your house in a flood zone or flash flood prone area. When we are having a downpour, stay indoors and don’t try to drive anywhere.

A link to flood maps can be found on my page about Brisbane.

Right now, the residents of St George have been evacuated to shelters set up in Brisbane, Toowoomba and Dalby. I hope they are able to return to their homes soon without too much damage having been done.

For more information about Australia’s extreme weather, please read my post called And Now The Weather: Wet, Hot, Cold….