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PORT Douglas is considered a 'blind spot' when it comes to severe weather warnings and this accounts for why the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) only issued a warning at 3pm on Sunday afternoon.

And by the time this was issued – via the BOM’s respective social media outlets, including their web page – the Port was already inundated with some areas receiving more than 300mm of rain.

For the 24-hour period from 9am Sunday until Monday morning, Port Douglas received 593mm of rainfall, which was the highest in the state. But this was far off from the devastating cyclone on March 16, 1911 when 800.9mm of rain was dumped on the region.

“We did not have any information at the time and we therefore had no idea Port Douglas was receiving the volume of rain. The area is a ‘blind spot’ for us,” a BOM spokesperson told Newsport.

“It is for this reason we did not issue a severe flood warning until 3pm yesterday afternoon.

The spokesperson said there are no rainfall gauges in this area nor anyone ‘on the ground’ to advise of conditions.

“We are reliant on our Cairns office and they would not initially have known of the heavy rainfall in Port Douglas.”

The Bureau did concede they had been advised that there would be heavy falls in this area, but were taken by surprise by what was produced over the 24-hour period.

It is conceivable they would have issued the warning a lot earlier, but they made it clear they had no idea of what was in store for the Port Douglas area.

The spokesperson said it would be advantageous to have ‘rain spotters’ in this area or those with gauges who could provide the BOM with some idea of the amount of rainfall being received.

Have you ever seen rain like this in your lifetime? Let us know in the comments below.

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