Bremer/Warrill Creek

This brochure describes the flood risk and previous flooding in the Bremer/Warrill Creek catchment, last updated in August 2025.

Flood Risk

The Bremer River catchment covers an area of approximately 2000 square kilometres. The major tributary is Warrill Creek, which joins the Bremer approximately ten kilometres upstream of Ipswich. The headwaters of the Bremer River and Warrill Creek rise in the Macpherson Ranges.

Heavy rainfall in these areas can cause major flooding of agricultural and rural areas as well as widespread traffic hazards and disruptions. In Ipswich, major flood levels on the Bremer River and Warrill Creek can lead to significant property inundation in numerous suburbs, including the CBD. Flooding in the Ipswich area can also be caused by local creek flooding, including in the Bundamba and Woogaroo Creeks. During heavy rainfall, these small creeks rise very quickly and can cause significant flooding in several suburbs.

Flooding in the Ipswich area can also occur due to backwater flooding from high river levels along the Brisbane River.

The Bremer River at Ipswich is tidally influenced though the effects are generally negated before the minor flood level is reached.

Previous Flooding

Flood records for Ipswich extend back as far as 1840 and indicate that the city has a long history of flooding. Notable floods included 1893, 1974, 2011 and 2022. Significant but lesser flood events were also observed in 1976, 1991, 1996, 2013, 2017 and 2025.

It is estimated that over 7000 properties in Ipswich are flood-affected once river levels exceed 19.25m.

The highest flood on record occurred in February 1893, when river levels reached 24.5 metres. This was over 5m higher than Jan 2011 (19.40m) and approximately 9 metres higher than Feb 2022 (16.72 m) flood events.

The largest flood in the 20th century occurred in January 1974, rising to a height of 20.7 metres on the Ipswich flood gauge located at David Trumpy Bridge. The flood caused widespread damage in the Ipswich area with newspapers at the time reporting many inundated properties and families left homeless.

In 2011, heavy to intense rainfall over Southeast Queensland between 9 January and 12 January 2011 eventuated due to a moist tropical airstream combining with potently unstable atmospheric conditions. This followed very much above average to highest on record rainfall during December 2010, and led to extreme river level rises and large-scale inundation of residential and agricultural areas throughout the Brisbane Valley and Lockyer Valley regions. This cumulated in a flood peak of 19.40 metres on Bremer River at Ipswich in January 2011.

More recently, during the February 2022 extreme prolonged rainfall event in southeast Queensland, the Bremer River at Ipswich peaked at 16.72 metres. Despite the much lower river levels in comparison to the 2011 flood event, extensive flooding resulted in significant inundation of homes and businesses.

Record multi-day catchment average rainfall accumulations were also recorded during the 2022 February rain event, surpassing the previous record set during the 1974 rain event. A new record 14-day catchment-average rainfall of 525.9 mm was observed between 23 February and 8 March 2022, exceeding the previous record of 490.3 mm set between 15 and 28 January 1974.

In March 2025, Tropical Cyclone (TC) Alfred brought widespread heavy to locally intense rainfall across the catchment with observed accumulative 2-day rainfall totals generally ranging 200 to 400 mm. Some of the more notable 24-hour rainfall totals to 9am on Monday the 10th of March included 291.8 mm at Franklyn Vale Alert and 221 mm at Ipswich Alert. Of note, Amberley AMO (H040004) recorded its highest daily March rainfall on record with 162.4 mm, a station with 84 years of observations. In terms of flood peaks, the following was observed during TC Alfred:

• On the Bremer River, flood peaks exceeded major flood level at most forecast locations (Rosewood Alert, Five Mile Bridge Alert, Walloon Alert) except at Ipswich Alert. The observed peaks were generally close to the February 2022 flood peaks, however, the peaks were all well below the record flood levels.
• On the Warrill Creek, major flood peaks were observed at two forecast locations (Harrisville Alert and Amberley Alert). Similarly, the observed peaks were generally close to those observed during the February 2022 flood event but well below the record flood levels. No observations were available for Kalbar, as such the severity and flood peak are unknown for this location.

The table below summarises the flood history of the Bremer River and Warill Creek catchments - it contains the flood gauge heights of some of the more significant flood peaks.

Flood Event	Kalbar (m)	Harrisville (m)	Amberley (m)	Rosewood (m)	5 Mile Br. (m)	Walloon (m)	Ipswich (m)
Feb 1893	-	8.33	-	-	-	-	24.50
Jan 1974	10.66	6.18	10.18	7.62	8.70	11.56	20.70
Feb 1976	10.73	5.95	8.60	6.00	7.40	8.99	13.65
Dec 1991	9.80	5.90	7.53	6.04	7.30	9.12	13.10
May 1996	10.00	5.91	6.75	6.33	7.60	9.25	11.31
Jan 2011	10.90	5.98	8.12	7.50	8.90	11.27	19.40
Jan-Feb 2013	11.00	5.82	6.63	6.85	8.12	9.86	13.90
Mar 2017	12.00	5.86	8.04	6.62	7.96	9.44	12.35
Feb 2022	-	5.91	8.60	6.82	-	10.30	16.70
*Mar 2025	-	5.88	7.74	6.81	8.34	10.43	11.47

 

All heights are in metres on flood gauges.

*Preliminary values subject to quality control