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Satellite imagery reveals water in usually dry SA lakes

Source Weatherzone Wed 04 Mar 2026

It’s not just Australia’s largest salt lake Kati-Thanda Lake Eyre that has water at the moment. South Australia has numerous other large salt lakes which are usually bone dry, but many are now filling after the extremely heavy outback rain which fell last week and into the weekend. Satellite imagery taken by NASA satellites shows the water in the SA lakes and the streams flowing down from Queensland using enhanced colours. What the false colours mean To help you interpret the enhanced or "false" colours, the NASA Worldview website explains that: Liquid water on the ground appears very dark since it absorbs in the red and the SWIR [Short-Wave [Infrared]. Sediments in water appear dark blue. Ice and snow appear as bright turquoise. Clouds comprised of small water droplets scatter light equally in both the visible and the SWIR and will appear white. These clouds are usually lower to the ground and warmer. High and cold clouds are comprised of ice crystals and will appear turquoise. Image: Satellite imagery taken on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, showing water in the Australian outback. Source: NASA Worldview. If you look carefully at the image above, you can see areas of relatively dark blue water, indicating sediments, or muddy dirt, in the water.  That’s thanks to rainfall totals that exceeded 100mm in a day at numerous South Australian locations, with totals approaching 200mm in two days at some locations. For example, Hawker (Flinders forecast district, just east of Lake Torrens) and Yunta (North East Pastoral) both topped 170mm in the first two days of March. This was close to Hawker’s annual average rainfall, while it was well over half of Yunta’s. That's why surface water can be seen in normally dry salt lakes like Lake Torrens and Lake Gairdner, which lie south of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre. Image: Satellite image of Lake Gairdner in South Australia on March 4, 2026. Source: NASA. How the other lakes are different from Lake Eyre in terms of infill When Lake Eyre fills, it tends to be from water that falls outside South Australia, thanks to tributaries like the Georgina River, Diamantina River and Cooper Creek which transport floodwaters down from Queensland. The other large South Australian salt lakes tend to rely on localised heavy rainfall, which is much rarer in Australia’s driest state of SA. Looking ahead: this week's weather Meanwhile South Australia’s outback regions can expect a return to the dry weather which is typical for early autumn for the remainder of this week. Adelaide can also expect a sunny spell.  It’s a different story in Queensland, where the weather will turn stormy across much of the state later this week. - Weatherzone © Weatherzone 2026