Gold Coast in the firing line for drenching

South East Queensland is in the firing line for a drenching rain this week, with totals over 200mm possible under isolated, near-stationary storms.

Torrential rain was predicted to carry through until early next week.

Amateur weather forecaster Dylan McKenna said while widespread falls of 50-150mm were possible for South East Queensland, severe thunderstorms could see some totals exceed 200mm.

Mr McKenna predicted the heaviest falls to occur on the Gold Coast, Beaudesert and communities along the NSWQueensland border.

“This general area of rain and storms will likely remain slow moving to near-stationary, eventually becoming an area of near-stationary rain and embedded heavy falls early Thursday morning over southern South East Queensland, northern NSW and the Darling Downs and Granite Belt, including areas as far north as Brisbane,” he said.

“This rainfall will likely continue and even intensify throughout Thursday, Friday and into Saturday with rain areas and embedded severe storms containing heavy rainfall sitting near stationary over the region.

“We can expect some quite significant rainfall accumulations due to this.”

Mr Clark said there were no flood warnings in place, but there was potential for flash flooding.

“With the majority of rainfall to enter through inland

Queensland, there is a higher risk of flooding for the southeast,” Mr Clark said.

Mr Clark said the rain event would persist into early next week.

“The system will be lingering for quite some time and will leave the coast by Tuesday. It will not mean a complete cessation of showers but certainly a real decrease in the shower activity,” he said.