Why is Brisbane flooding?

Brisbane is Australia’s third largest city and has been affected by serious flooding in recent months.  City streets and entire neighborhoods were affected by the flooding incidents which made people ask why these disastrous events are happening.  Many people point to heavy rains which soaked the city with excess water and filled the rivers and dams to an overflowing capacity.

The weather phenomenon called “La Nina” takes much of the blame for the flooding in Brisbane and in many other cities around Australia as well as in other countries around the world.  This particular phenomenon has particularly affected Australia with very heavy rainfall.  It is said that the La Nina weather phenomenon specifically causes an accumulation of rain clouds from the Pacific Ocean affecting countries like Australia and those in the southeastern parts of Asia. With this weather phenomenon literally hanging over the clouds of Australia, many of their cities, including Brisbane, have experienced very heavy rainfall.  It is also said that the entire Brisbane River sort of snakes through the city and various neighborhoods which results in flooding when this particular river can’t contain the excess water from the rain.  When there is excess water in the rivers, then the water will eventually spill out to the nearby areas including neighborhoods.  The closer the houses are to the river, the more likely they are to become flooded during heavy rainfalls.

But aside from La Nina, other abnormal weather patterns may also be blamed for flooding in Brisbane.  As for the northwestern parts of Australia, the monsoon season also brings heavy rains every year.  What makes this worse is that the rain clouds brought about by this weather disturbance seem so thick and long while covering a big part of any city or town.  So with the heavy rains, the rivers and dams will eventually overflow to residential areas causing serious flooding.