More heavy rain forecast for flood-weary Australia's east

I hope they have the means to store all this free water for when the droughts come.

No way to have covered storage for all that water. Evaporation will happen, and ground seepage as well. The water storage dams are at or near capacity right now on the east coast. Without a nation wide water pipeline there is no way to move water to area's in need (drought stricken) so the water will largely go into the sea and give the east coast a huge soaking.

It is what it is. Perhaps the underground water table will replace water used for farming and from wells and top up as well as the dams. At some point in the future there will be drought again and every drop will be precious again. For now, it is more than needed.

It seems that for many years already, news about and, from Australia is about fire and water. And not just small fires and small floods. Huge fires and thousands of tons of falling water are affecting only the inhabitated coastal areas? And the great Outback deserts which I believe, covers most of Australia's collosal land mass remains deserts with few people?

I hope they have the means to store all this free water for when the droughts come.

Some areas could receive up to 100 mm (4 inches), about a quarter of Australia's annual average rainfall.

An essentially meaningless statement, given the ginormous variation in annual average rainfall across the vast continent. Tully (4,100mm), Strachan (1,600mm) Alice Springs and Marble Bar (300mm). Brought to you by the same people who specialize in demonstrating their functional geographic (US centric) illiteracy with annoyingly trite and inane formulations such as adding ‘state’ to the name of any state except when its an American one, appending “Australia’s second most populous city” whenever Melbourne is mentioned, or referring to Osaka as, needless to say, a city in “Western Japan”.

Yeah, it is wet even down in Melbourne. Not on the scale of NSW but wet none the less.

Excellent timing. Just started hammering down again.

Sympathy to my Australian friends. The country is very close to my California. Back before railroads, it was easier to get to Australia from California than to New York. My state, too, suffers from either drought and wildfires or flood and mudslides. I suppose that is the price of living in paradise.