SOME areas have been overwhelmed, while others still await the weekend’s promised rainfall.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) had forecast days of rain and even the possibility of flooding, but for much of the region, that has failed to eventuate.
Parched pockets of Great Western were by farthe wettest places as more than 50 millimetres fell into rain gauges across the town during a two-day deluge.
Great Western General Store owner Tracey McCartney said the town appeared to have benefited from isolated downpours.
“Often when we get a lot of rain out here the store will flood, so we were a bit worried about that,” she said.
“It was torrential, there was water right across the highway turning it into a river, but thankfully our store didn’t flood.”
Mrs McCartney said she recorded a staggering 68mm when rain hit at 10pm on Thursday night and that was followed by a further 28mm on Friday evening.
Overall rainfall figures vary, but unofficially Mrs McCartney said one resident claimed to have recorded 77mm on Thursday night alone.
Seppelt’s Regional Vineyard Manager Paul Dakis said they recorded more than 70mm across two days.
“At the vineyard we recorded about 50mm on Thursday and about another 25mm on Friday,” he said.
“They were isolated falls, but very welcome. It has put water in dams and provided quite a lot of relief for livestock.”
The BOM has predicted the potential for further falls of between 10-20mm Tuesday. That has led to an appeal from emergency services personnel for residents to take care.
Stawell State Emergency Service Deputy Controller of Training and Operations, Aaron Blamey has called on people to ensure their properties are secure, after crews responded to several instances of preventable flood damage.
“We advise people to make sure they are prepared and that their premises and gutters are cleared of any debris, given the possibility of another rain event during this week,” he said.
At the height of last week’s rain event about 10 members responded to two calls for help in Great Western and another two calls in Stawell.
“We attended to two incidents at Great Western. The first was flood damage to a property as a result of blocked gutters,” Mr Blamey said.
“There was also some localised fl ooding around the Great Western Football Club.”
According to the BOM, Stawell was again the driest of the region’s main centres with a total of 21.4mm over the three day period.
Just one millimetre fell in the 24 hours to 9am Thursday, before 3.4mm was recorded the following day.
The heavens finally opened just after 4pm Friday afternoon with 17mm over the following 11 hours.
That turned out to be the town’s biggest one day rainfall total since October 2013.
Stawell’s cumulative rainfall total for the month of January now stands at 26.4mm.
Ararat lapped up steady falls towards the end of last week with 5.8mm in the 24 hours to 9am Thursday and a further 6.7mm in the same period to 9am Friday.
The biggest falls were saved for overnight Friday with 15mm recorded. Another 3.0mm fell in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday.
Together with 4.8mm the weekend before, last week’s downpour takes Ararat’s cumulative January rainfall total to 35.3mm, already almost three times as much as for the same month of 2014.
