THE RECORD FLOODS OF NORTH QUEENSLAND 2019 - CAUSE, IMPACT AND CONSEQUENCES

Those who live in North Queensland are aware of the wet/dry season annual rainfall patterns. In most years they experience this contrast and are aware of dry winters when water rainfalls are low and wet summer months when downpours can cause local flooding. However, in January/February 2019 the wet summer became extremely wet and has been called “THE BIG WET”. Find out why this occurred. Take your students into a cattle property where the"BIG WET" became a disaster. Then move to the coastal city of Townsville and discover why the flood control system of the Ross River Dam and the lower Ross River were overwhelmed by “THE BIG WET”. Your students will need to use the visual resources to find answers to questions and activities provided in the attachment sheets. This unit is the first part in the series on “THE BIG WET”. It can be linked with a follow-up series on Lake Eyre flooding because the amount of water in Queensland was large enough to cause flows into the rivers of the northern area of the Lake Eyre Basin. That unit will be developed when resources of the Lake Eyre situation have been collected.