Floods and heatwaves: wild weather ravages Australia

Wild weather continues throughout Australia, with most of the country expected to cop a drenching this week while others wilt in the heat.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued flood and heavy rainfall warnings for parts of South Australia, with some places recording nearly a year’s worth of rainfall in 24 hours.

Some outback towns have been cut off because of road closures because of heavy falls on Sunday.

And the BOM issued storm warnings for many areas of the central western parts of SA, the Eyre Peninsula and the Flinders district.

The central and north eastern parts of the state are expected to cop further heavy rain in the coming days.

On Sunday, Kadina, a town on the western York Peninsula, received 84.4mm of rain.

The Arcoona Bluff station recorded 106.8mm in the 24 hours until 9am on Sunday.

“To put that in context, it’s about a third of the year’s rainfall. It’s a really, really huge value,” BOM senior meteorologist Jackson Browne said.

Many other parts of the country are expected to receive drenchings starting later this week due to the formation of a monsoon trough moving through the Northern Territory and tropical Queensland.

“It will be intense up in the north where the actual trough is,” Mr Brown said.

“But it’s spreading quite a bit of tropical moisture through the rest of the country.”

That rain is expected to shed off into NSW, Queensland and Victoria.

The BOM is predicting that Sydney will be wet towards the end of the week while Melbourne will be humid on Monday and Tuesday and wet from Wednesday.

While in other parts of the country, it remains hot with records being set in Western Australia.

Perth on Saturday sweltered through its fifth straight day of 40-plus degree temperatures - a record for the WA capital.

It was also the 10th time the mercury had tipped over 40C in Perth this summer.

On Sunday, temperatures nudged past 39C just before midday however they were next expected to go over 40.

Perth will remain hot for the rest of the week - with maximums in the mid to low 30s forecast.

The bureau is forecasting the searing hot weather will return next weekend, with a top of 39C predicted on Saturday.

Tasmania is also experiencing a mild heatwave, as well as parts of Victoria such as Warrnambool, and South Australia like Mount Gambier, Mr Browne said.

“We’ve seen fires in western Tasmania in what should be a very wet part of the world,” he said.

“It’s an unusual pattern that we find ourselves in.”