Heavy rainfall recorded in Geraldton over the weekend with SES called out to help flooded houses

It had been a long wait, but the skies finally opened over the weekend — flooding some homes, but also turning other parts of Geraldton into a mini-water playground. While the official gauge at Geraldton Airport only recorded 7.6mm in the 24 hours to Monday morning, some parts of Geraldton experienced more of a deluge, causing streets to flood. Geraldton had the most rain recorded in the Central West and it was heavy enough to inundate some property — and it was the most rain recorded in the city in the past five months. The Geraldton Greenough SES received six calls for help over the weekend. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Paynes Find received most of the rain in the Gascoyne at 29mm, second to Bulga Downs receiving 28mm of rain within nine hours yesterday. The Murchison region received 16mm of rain. BOM duty forecaster Jessica Lingard said storms fired up in the western parts of the Gascoyne on Saturday, and some thunderstorms moved to Geraldton later that day. The storm over the weekend was the most rainfall in Geraldton since October 19 recorded at 24.8mm. Geraldton Greenough SES local manager Ross Jones said the crew received six call-outs over a short period of time over the weekend. “Water was flooding into households and we were able to help by placing sandbags in front of entrances,” he said. “There was a house in Wonthella that we assisted with filling bags.” Mr Jones said there were calls for water leaking into houses from people’s roofs but the SES were unable to assist with leaking roof water. “Due to a few households that were overwhelmed with water pouring into the gutter, there wasn’t much we could do as there was nowhere else for the water to go,” he said. Mr Jones said it was an unexpected downpour and there were a few places which could have avoided issues by general housekeeping maintenance. “We are always trying to advise people to prepare before a storm to avoid unnecessary damage to households,” he said. Kalbarri SRS manager Steve Cable said they didn’t feel the storm in Kalbarri, just a 50 per cent cloud cover.