Brisbane has just registered its wettest day since 1974 as heavy rain continues to inundate already flooded rivers and dams across southeast Queensland.

A relentless band of rain has been parked over southeast Queensland for the last 24 hours as moisture-laden air feeds into a slow-moving low pressure trough. This wet weather setup, which is being enhanced by a slow-moving upper-level low pressure system, follows a three-day deluge that had already caused major flooding in multiple river catchments across the region.

As of 6am AEST on Saturday, Brisbane had received 206.2mm of rain. This is the city’s highest daily total since 1974 and takes its running four-day total up to 322.2mm, which is two months’ worth of rain at this time of year.

Further north, rainfall totals have been hard to comprehend along the ranges to the west of the Sunshine Coast.

A rain gauge at Pomona, to the west of Noosa, received 538mm of rain during the 21 hours to 6am on Saturday, including 243mm in just two hours between 1am and 3am. This latest rain brings their running four days total, since 9am on Tuesday, to 1,323mm. For perspective, this is about 10 times Pomona’s monthly average and higher than Brisbane’s average annual rainfall of 1,213mm.

Almost every rain gauge between Gympie and Brisbane and west to Toowoomba collected more than 100mm of rain during the last 24 hours, with isolated totals reaching 300-500mm.

This rain, which was falling into already saturated catchments, inundated roads and rivers across southeast Queensland. Unsurprisingly, there is a long list of flood warnings in place across the region on Saturday morning.

Unfortunately, more heavy rain is likely to fall in southeast QLD this weekend and also spread into parts of northeast NSW.

Image: Forecast accumulated rain during the 48 hours ending at 11pm AEDT on Sunday, according to the ECMWF model.

This weekend’s rain will exacerbate existing flooding and will also cause new flooding in some areas as it spread further south into northeast NSW.

This is a very dangerous life-threatening weather event, so be sure to check the latest severe weather warnings and flood warnings throughout the weekend if you live in southeast QLD or northeast NSW. And never drive through floodwaters.