Watching the Burdekin Falls Dam with around six metres of water going over the spillway following flood rains in the catchment, we must remember that this is not a rare occurrence.
As far back as 1875 there are records of the Burdekin River rising over 18 metres in just a few hours and repeated reports of 1 to 6 metres of water above the bridge deck at Inkerman. Records of high river flows lasting weeks and months are not uncommon. Following a cyclone in December 1974 the river remained at flood height until April 1975.
These flood flows can exceed 5 mega-litres per second (almost half a million ML every day). This is sufficient to fill our oldest irrigation storage, Burrinjuck Dam, from empty, every two days.