Dry out

How long is a piece of string ? If anyone can answer that they can tell you down to the minute of when the mud dries ,the flood is gone or the next rain will make the road umpassable .....an awful lot can happen between now and July , just as a piece of string is as long as it needs to be , fortune tellers crystal ball ??

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If it's any help, here is the BOM's outlook for 3 months ahead.

I too am waiting for July with fingers crossed.
Once rain has stopped, it only takes a couple of weeks in most places to dry out enough to be driveable. Except of course in such places as Cape York where the elevated terrain takes some time to de-water and keeps the creeks high.

This site too can be useful.

The current floods heading towards Birdsville area will be slow to dry up because of cooler climatic conditions and the lengthy residual runoff, due to saturated catchments. By July, all roads, & most tracks should be open, with exception of Warburton Crossing.

I’d suggest there may be a surge in snatch strap & Maxtrax sales, as folk prepare for their trips, or replace items damaged or destroyed through the year.

Bob

With most of Central Australia being exceptionally flat, the clayey areas that become waterlogged will take many weeks of fine weather before they are dry enough to be passable again.
Then it only takes one thunderstorm to change the whole scenario back to endless bog again.

It pays to be very circumspect about flat clayey ground areas you're travelling over if there has been serious amounts of water on it in recent weeks.
You can have clayey ground that looks good and traverses well - until you come to a spot where water has gathered - and you will sink like a stone.

I've been travelling on a good country gravel road with my old International R190 truck and low loader, with a Cat D6 dozer on board - and came around a bend at about 70kmh - and the whole rig (truck and trailer) buried itself in the road, nearly a metre deep! - and I came to a full stop, in about 60 metres!

At that time (early 1970's), it was a particularly wet Winter, and there was an old stream bed running under the road, which had become waterlogged.
The gravel depth was inadequate to support the load of the truck, low loader and dozer, and I simply fell through the gravel sheeting.

It got even more interesting when I went to unload the dozer, and nearly got that bogged, too!
It was a real eye-opener to everyone, as there was no indication of any surface water, no ground seepage, just an old creek bed under the road, fully saturated!

Cheers, Ron.