Australia’s driest town swamped as deadly storms swirl

Robyn Wuth and Nick Wilson | March 1, 2026

It’s supposed to be the driest town in Australia, but Oodnadatta has been left a sea of buckets and tarps after being hit in an inland big wet that claimed the life of one man.

The motorbike rider went missing after trying to cross a flooded creek at Eurelia, in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges on Sunday morning.

The 47-year-old’s body was later recovered as severe weather warnings and flash flooding alerts remain in place across the region and much of Australia’s inland southeast.

The deluge exposed the lack of weather proofing at the historic Pink Roadhouse, located in SA’s arid north on the famous Oodnadatta Track.

The dirt car park out front of the Oodnadatta food stop is a muddy quagmire; the locals say it hasn’t rained this much since the 1980s. 

For Nicole Castagnaro, her shift at the roadhouse on Sunday was spent emptying the 30-plus buckets and containers dotted around the store as the rain kept falling and the roof kept leaking.

“There’s no one around at all,” she told AAP.

“The roads are closed, we’re running out of food, and if the trucks can’t get through, we’ll be stuck eating baked beans for the foreseeable future.”

Oodnadatta received nearly 18mm of rain overnight, or more than 10 per cent of its average annual rainfall of 171mm.

It’s been so long since the tracks flooded, most locals have no idea what happens next if food can’t be delivered to the tiny town and its population of 102 people.

“We can’t live on just beans, but I don’t know if the military will airlift supplies – I guess we’ll find out,” Ms Castagnaro said.

There’s no immediate end in sight to the huge storm system as it passes through central Australia, bringing widespread downfalls and flash flooding.

Millions were still bracing for deluges on Sunday night and Monday morning amid severe weather warnings for SA’s east and much of western Victoria and NSW.

The outback SA mining town of Coober Pedy also copped an unexpected drenching, receiving nearly 16mm of rainfall during the night.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s Dean Narramore said heavy rain, thunderstorms and flooding were expected to continue until at least Monday night.

“While for some areas, we’ve seen welcome agricultural impacts from this widespread rainfall, the additional rainfall could start causing some issues,” he said.

After receiving just 3.6mm of rain so far in 2026, Adelaide was told to expect falls of up to 50mm on Sunday, but the heavy downpours instead fell further north.

Yunta, in the outback about 300km northeast of the SA capital, received 129mm of rain, while rural centres such as Mildura in northwest Victoria were also inundated.

The downpour came as a shock to many in SA after forecasters tipped the state’s first dry summer since 2019, the eighth since records began.

Meteorologists have described the slow-moving tropical low – which sat over the Simpson Desert in the southeast Northern Territory for a week – as highly unusual.

For many farmers, some rain is welcome but forecasters warn that benefits will turn to risk as totals push beyond 50mm.

The low is expected to weaken as it moves east, although consistent falls have already prompted warnings of increased shark activity in Sydney Harbour and estuaries along the NSW coast after heavy rain.

Rich run-off can attract baitfish and, in turn, sharks, triggering attacks such as the spate in January that left one Sydney schoolboy dead.