Flood Risks for Coal Mining Regions in Eastern Australia

Many parts of eastern Australia have experienced flooding over last few weeks where repeated rain-bearing systems have been relentless. Are coal mines in eastern Australia at risk of flooding?

A key ingredient for flooding is rainfall. Both future rainfall and rainfall in the months leading up to now. Antecedent rainfall, the amount in the last several months, indicates how wet the soil is in a given catchment. Dry catchments require a period of rainfall before run off becomes significant.In contrast, rainfall falling on already wet catchments produces a lot of run off and can quickly induce flooding.

In order to assess the flood risk for the upcoming wet season in NSW and Qld, the last 12 months of rainfall has been displayed (above). Blue shading indicates higher than average rainfall. The darkest blue shading - as in some areas of the Hunter Valley in NSW, and parts of the Surat and Moreton Basins in SEQ - represents the highest rainfall on record for the same 12 month period. This means that these areas are primed for flooding if heavy rainfall eventuates in the coming months.

Rainfall in the La Trobe Valley has seen near average rainfall for the last 12 months (denoted by white shading in the image across that region). Despite this, the current La Nina and negative IOD combine together to give an increased risk of above average rainfall across for this area, too, as well as NSW and Qld.

Contact MetraWeather for more information about future rainfall in these coal regions.