Lake Eyre/central Australia about to get rain again

Stephen.
Apparently the ABC have no maps and no history of where, or how water flows into Lake Eyre. Their researchers only seem to google themselves silly. As you said, it is QLD rain which does the filling.

The ABC just may have kept an eye on the Lake Eyre Yacht Club's Lake Status Page.. I think they have made enough study to predict what is happening.

Hi Peter,

They are all jumping to conclusions and most of the very heavy rain fell a lot further south.

Having said that, Trevor Wright was on the radio this morning and said that there were a few patches of pooled water on sections of the lake surface and once the weather gets back to normal, those puddles will quickly evaporate in the coming weeks.

Some of the water cources in SA will flow in either direction, filling the lake when it rains there and draining it if it is "full".
The Margaret River and Pricilla Creek come to mind.

The sign has been missing for many years. :(
Cheers,
Peter

I remember reading a report somewhere possibly in this forum the lake can not be full for previously mentioned reasons.
What water course has ever in recorded history carried water from the lake to an ocean?
Water may flow back up rivers in a different direction to where it come from but this is still the action of filling the lake from its lowest point. The lake cant be called full till the water is flowing away from the lake down hill.

Some water from Lake Eyre probably finds its way to the ocean, via the the Great Artesian Basin and man's interference, but that dose not count:)
This pic was taken from a F28 Fokker in 1974 when we flew over it.
It was pretty "full" then, relative to how full it can get.

https://www.ritas-outback-guide.com/lake-eyre.html
"May 2019 - More rain events happened in the Lake Eyre catchment, not as devastating as the first one in February. Much of the water will be soaked by the dry soils, but there is water flowing towards the lake.
It is expected that the lake might fill two-third, or even three-quarters, by June. This would be the best flood year since 1974, when Lake Eyre was considered to be full the last time."
http://www.lakeeyreyc.com/Photos/FloodGraph.jpg

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome

Yep lots of water but still room for lots more.
It was "deemed" full.
Just means it is the most water thats been in it in recorded history.
What will it be called if it ever gets 3 times that much in and still room for more.

Qldcamper,

Slight correction for you……

Lake Eyre North can totally fill….this is a fact and can not be disputed.

The overflow from the lake when totally full them goes the small channel that then proceeds to full Lake Eyre South…..which are 2 different Lakes and can be seen on any good map.

I stand corrected, so it is lake eyre south that can not be filled?

I have read somewhere that one time local rain filled Lake Eyre South and the water flowed through the channel into the main lake.

I have looked it up in the past but darned if I know where I read it but it was a proper source, not anecdotal.

Cheers

Just means south is a bit higher than the main body of the lake.
According to what I have found the water level has not come close to even sea level in an estimated 100 000 years.

Lake Eyre is simply an internal drainage basin , where topography prevents drainage to the ocean. In this context, fullness is more a common parlance term rather than a definitional one.

Ok, fill right up was a bad choice of words....ABC was saying it would potentially fill more than it has for many years, and the potential to get a canoe or boat on it could eventuate. (which i thought i should share with fellow explorers)

Yep couldn't agree more, just a common usage word, what constitutes a full lake has no definitional meaning to argue over.

Needs a couple of hundred mm to get a boat on it.
Friend sailed his trailer sailer there a few years ago in maybe 1m.
1974 saw it with 6m of water. Almost enough for a cruise ship? :) :)

We were there in Easter 1995. There were a group making a doco (or at least, planning to) of breeding pelicans on a island a couple of km off the "coast". They were being ferried out via a small hovercraft. All was going fine and there were several of the crew out there with a little of their gear when the salt shredded the hovercraft skirts.
Now they had a problem. The group on the island had no communications and no food or over night gear.
We packed up a couple of our VHF radios that would be dropped from a fixed wing aircraft, but after some time they found a chopper at Moomba that brought them back next morning.



Cheers
Peter
OKA196 motorhome