THE skies opened up with little warning on Wednesday afternoon as a storm front hit town at approximately 4pm bringing heavy rain with it.
Several local roads and businesses flooded but a review of the local region revealed that it was the intensity rather than the volume that caused flooding.
Robinvale, Moulamein and Sea Lake all reported that no rain was recorded while Ultima received 4mm.
Lalbert’s fall was patchy with some gauges reading 7mm while some had 36mm and others had none.
Wycheproof received varying amounts of water with some gauges capturing 36mm and others only catching 4mm.
Wind gusts caused trees to fall across roads in Narraport and drivers between Lalbert and Culgoa reported extreme wind and rain yet Culgoa itself reported no rainfall.
The direction of the downfall may account for some variance as wind pushed the rain sideways but overall the nature of the storm appeared to be strong patches that brought mixed results from neighbour to neighbour.
In Swan Hill the 4pm deluge lasted approximately 15 minutes in total.
At 4.04pm, 4.2mm of rain was recorded and this rose a further 5.4mm at 4:08pm.
A second heavy fall occurred at approximately 5.30pm taking the total daily rainfall to 15.6mm according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Flooding is being blamed on the intensity of rain rather than overall rainfall amounts. Gutters struggled to cope, sparking a timely reminder to keep gutters around the home clear of built up dust and debris.
Temperatures are set to remain cooler for the next several days with a slight chance of showers on Friday and Saturday and things starting to warm up again on Monday.
