bringing rare flooding to the country's desert interior. The usually dry Todd River passing through the outback capital of Alice Springs was awash with floodwater on Friday, closing roads to motorists and tourists.
"Central Australia, the desert, it's just lush green grass and there's water everywhere, and the river's flowing. It's strange, it's very weird," Alice Springs council spokesman Trevor Packham told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
"I've been here 24 years and I've never seen it like this."
Alice Spings, close to Ayers Rock, plays host each year to the "Henley-On-Todd Dry River Boat Regatta", a light-hearted race in which teams race on foot along the sandy river bed in cardboard boats.
The race aims to mimic England's famous Henley-on-Thames rowing regatta, but in the unlikely surroundings of Australia's red-dust interior.
But this year heavy rain and storms have moved south into the desert along with cloud from a monsoon trough in the tropics.
"Around 40 kilometers out of Alice Springs near the Tropic of Capricorn it is a meter over the road there and I've been told some tourists are stranded," Packham said.
Television images showed children playing in shallows where rainfalls usually come years apart.
The national weather bureau said this month that Australia appeared to be suffering from an accelerated climate change brought about by global warming.
