Northern Victoria is bracing for 30 to 50 millimetres of rain over a 72-hour period this weekend as thunderstorms roll across the state, but the State Emergency Service doesn’t expect that to lead to more major flooding on the Goulburn River.
However, over coming weeks La Nina may dump more water on the region and cause the river to rise again.
Victoria SES northern region manager Ray Jasper said the river would likely reduce to minor flood level to 7m over coming days but there was potential for the river to rise over the next few months.
“We’re pretty confident the rainfall for Thursday, Friday and Saturday might see a slight rise (in river levels) but it’s not going to impact the community,” he said.
“People need to realise we’re in La Nina here, and like what we saw in NSW and Queensland we’re unfortunately in that pattern where we see that river come up and down whether we like it or not.”
"We have a saturated catchment so the river is going to stay high, and it won’t take a lot of rain in the catchment-wide area to keep it going up and down but we’ll try and put warnings out as it moves to help the community prepare as best we can.“
The current forecast is for light rain on Thursday and 5-10mm on Friday with up to 30mm in isolated areas, with 20-30mm on Saturday in the north-east.
Isolated thunderstorms may be in place over parts of the region.
Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority statutory planning and floodplain manager Guy Tierney said ‘’over 72 hours we could get 30-50mm, with up to 70mm in isolated areas’’.
“Monday and Tuesday are unknown,” he said.
Mr Jasper said the incident control centre in Shepparton would remain open to keep up to date with warnings.