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Lake Eyre (also called Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre) sits in the heart of the Australian outback, the continent's most arid area. Receiving an average of 140 millimeters (5.5 inches) of rain each year, the lake is a dry, salty plain much of the time. But every once in a while, it transforms into an expansive inland sea.Approximately one-sixth of the Australian continent drains toward Lake Eyre, rather than to an ocean. Water often evaporates before it makes it there, although some will end up in the lake every few years. In 2025, extreme autumn rainfall in Queensland flooded several rivers that...

Seldom do flooding rains reach Lake Eyre in the arid heart of the continent, but it has now happened two years in a row, triggering a spectacular explosion of life in the region. The outback rivers are flowing from a series of rain events across the deserts of central Australia which began late last year, and there is nearly as much water in Lake Eyre as there was at the height of last year's flood - with more to come. Outback adventurer Rex Ellis has witnessed every flooding event at Lake Eyre for the past 50 years. He famously crossed...