By Kinshu Jain edited for online by  Jacob Miley

Some much needed rain has soaked Western Queensland over the past two days, bringing joy to the drought-stricken areas.

 

The red dust of outback Queensland has been transformed into red clay, with some parts even receiving their highest daily May rainfall totals in 35 years.

The rain is part of the same weather event, whipping up damaging winds in Southern Australia.

One regional mayor said the falls of up to nearly 10 centimetres could set up many towns for a “bumper year”.

Birdsville in Queensland’s southwest was drenched, with nearly 50mm – four times its average rainfall for the month.

It was the town’s wettest day in May since 1981.

Other districts such as the Ballera Gas Field received 97mm in the 24-hours since Sunday morning.

Big rains were also recorded at Monument, Nappa Merrie Station and Hungerford.

Wanaaring, in north-western New South Wales, received 83mm.

Residents of Birdsville say they are thrilled with the rain, with Colin Pissfiald saying it was great to see.

“All the local are really happy about the weather situation that has come through,” Mr Pissfiald said.

“A lot of the tourists who have come through haven’t seen rain like this in such an isolated area so they are really happy.

There is a couple of road closures but they will be open probably in the next day or so.”

Mr Pissfiald said many of the tourists found it quite comical that they were flooded in Birdsville.

“All and all it is really good that the rain is here,” he said.

With more than 80 per cent of Queensland drought declared, the rain is a proverbial drop in the ocean.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Adam Blazak, said the wild weather came in from the Indian Ocean.

“What we had was a quite a strong upper-level trough move over the south west of the state on the weekend,” he said.

“It dragged a lot moist air from the Indian Ocean over the centre of Australia, which produced a lot of wide-spread steady rainfall.

Mr Blazak said the rains were expected to lose intensity in the coming days.

“The trough has weakened considerably as its moved east, it’s almost at the coast at the moment.

“Ahead of the trough a lot of north-westerly air has been dragged down from Central Queensland over the south-east corner increasing day time temperatures.

“Also with the associated cloud cover, night time minimums have also been above average for this time of year.”