In mid-December, those of us in the Australian state of Victoria believed it was going to be a dry and hot summer. After a very hot couple of days in a heat wave in Melbourne, we were asking, “where is our summer rain?”
Well lo and behold on Dec. 29, at around 4:50 p.m., we had a massive flash flood. The Bureau of Meteorology recorded 18.4 millimetres (0.72 inches) of rain, and more than 1,200 calls made to Victorian state emergency department. Insurers reported more than 2,500 water damage claims.