IN yet another unusual storm event for the year, the Esperance region has received a deluge of rain.
Coolmalbidgup received 122 millimetres of rain, Ravensthorpe received 111mm while the town of Esperance seemed to miss out only receiving 8mm in the 24 hours leading to 9 am on Wednesday.
Peter Terrell farms on Lort River station west of Esperance and received 117mm in the past 36 hours.
Luckily he wasn't too far into his seeding program.
"We had put in about 20 per cent of our canola," Mr Terrell said.
"That's all we'd done, but it's pretty early for us anyway because we are only eight kilometres from the sea.
"We normally like to start the last week of April."
Mr Terrell said he has had similar rains before, but the unusual factor in this event was the time.
"Normally it comes overnight, you wake up in the morning and the place is flooded," he said.
"This was through the day and continued into the night.
"By the time the night came it was very evident how much water was flowing around the place."
The downpour was caused by a slow-moving trough.
"Because it was slow moving, that's why we got so much rainfall all in one spot as the storms didn't move through quickly, they sort of sat there," said Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) duty forecaster Jessica Lingard.
She said there was a bit of onshore flow, a southerly wind in the area, so there still could be some light showers or some drizzle conditions today, then be partly cloudy for Friday.
As the rain clears, Mr Terrell is optimistic about the state of his canola.
"Where the last of it was planted was reasonably well drained so I don't think we'll end up with a lot of ponding, so I think that particular stuff will probably be OK," he said.
Prior to this rainfall, Mr Terrell had received 30mm of rain for the year, and usually has an average yearly rainfall of 547mm.
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