Upper Condamine River

This brochure describes the flood risk and previous flooding in the Upper Condamine River catchment, last updated in August 2025.

Flood Risk

The Condamine River catchment to Warwick covers an area of approximately 1300 square kilometres and includes the major tributaries Swan Creek, Emu Creek and Rosenthall Creek which join the Condamine River just upstream of Warwick. The headwaters of these tributaries rise along the New South Wales border in the Herries Range to the south, and in the rainforests of Main Range to the east. Due to the fan-like shape of the catchment, heavy rainfall over the catchment can cause major flooding of agricultural areas adjacent to the waterways, and major flooding of residential and commercial areas of Killarney and Warwick. Heavy rainfall at The Head quickly makes its way to Killarney, near the top of the catchment, with limited lead time. This increases the risk of flash flooding at Killarney.

Previous Flooding

Flood records for Warwick extend back as far as 1887 and indicate that the city has a long history of flooding from the Condamine River. The highest recorded flood occurred in February 1976 when the river rose to a height of 9.10 metres on the Warwick flood gauge located at McCahon Bridge. The flood caused widespread flooding in the Warwick area with newspapers at the time reporting damage to over 100 homes and over 1000 people left homeless during the flood.

More recent major flood events occurred two weeks apart in December 2010 and January 2011 as part of a broad system which flooded large parts of Queensland. The most recent major flooding occurred in May 2022, where the river reached 7.56m at Warwick, with parts of Warwick being inundated and some residents evacuated.

The table below summarisies the flood history of the Upper Condamine River catchment - it contains the flood gauge heights of the more recent significant flood peaks.

Flood Event	The Head (m)	Killarney (m)	Elbow Valley (m)	Murray's Bridge (m)	Warwick (m)
Jun 1950	-	6.99	-	-	7.78
Jan 1974	3.96	5.61	5.40	-	7.01
Feb 1976	4.30	6.13	6.68	-	9.10
Jan 2008	4.80	6.60	6.24	7.55	6.04
Dec 2010	-	6.45*	6.13	8.40	7.90
Jan 2011	-	6.45*	-	8.95	8.35
Jan 2013	5.00	6.25	6.10	8.40	7.21
Mar 2017	-	6.15	4.61	7.45	6.21
May 2022	4.36	5.84	6.20	8.80	7.56

 

All heights are in metres on flood gauges.

[*] Estimated Peak Flood Heights from flood marks and other information.