The Wild Guide - Free

The Wild Guide is our free Online Travel Guide for backpacking and independent travel in Australia.

We are continually updating so feel free to browse the pages for loads of usefull travel information. Subscibe below for updates in your inbox

Ayers Rock & Outback Travel Guide

Lake Eyre Floods

Lake Eyre

Typically a 1.5 m flood occurs every three years, a 4 m flood every decade, and a fill or near fill four times a century. The water in the lake soon evaporates with a minor and medium flood drying by the end of the following summer.

2009

The 2009 Lake Eyre flood peaked at 1.5 m (5 ft) deep in late May which is a quarter of its maximum recorded depth of 6 m (20 ft). 9 km3 (2 cu mi) of water crossed the Queensland-South Australian border with most of it coming from massive floods in the Georgina River. However the greater proportion soaked into the desert or evaporated en route to the lake leaving less than 4 km3 (0.24 cu mi) in the lake which covered an area of 800 km2 (309 sq mi) or 12% of the lake. As the flood did not start filling the lake's deepest point (Belt Bay) until late March little bird life appeared preferring instead to nest in the upper reaches of the Lake Eyre Basin, north of Birdsville, where large lakes appeared in January as a result of monsoonal rain.

2010

The high rainfall in summer sent flood water into the Diamantina, Georgina and Cooper Creek catchments of the Lake Eyre basin. The higher rainfall has prompted many different birds to migrate back to the area for breeding.

2011

Heavy rain in early March filled the southern end of the lake, with the north of the usually-dry salt pan about 75 per cent covered with water continuing to inflow from local creeks.

See Also