Vehicles slide off roads and farms ruing rain after big soaking over band of Riverina

The downpour on Friday created drama on the Hume Highway south of Holbrook with a semi-trailer sliding off.

Thankfully the driver was uninjured after the incident late Friday morning near the Woomargama turn-off.

There was also reports of a car and motorcyclist skidding off roads.

Greater Hume engineering director Greg Blackie estimated 200 Water Over Road signs had been placed across the shire on Friday.

The major concern was the Jingellic-Holbrook Road which he hopes will re-open on Saturday after being closed since Thursday due to flooding on the Wantagong plain.

The SES attended seven jobs at Holbrook on Friday which included leaking roofs, sandbagging and a fallen tree.

Further north, The Rock suffered with flooding across a wide area and the Olympic Highway was reduced to one lane, under control of a traffic light, on Friday night.

In Albury, emergency authorities will monitor the Murray River at Noreuil Park, Doctors Point and Mungabareena Reserve over the weekend as releases from Lake Hume flow through.

As of Friday night, the city had recorded 122.8 millimetres for November, with the month's mean 59.7.

The rain total for November 2020 was 38 millimetres.

Since Wednesday, there has been 47 millimetres, but Holbrook and Walbundrie have recorded 160 over the same period.

The deluge irked Walbundrie farmer Brett Lieschke.

"It's a royal pain in the backside," he said.

"I haven't seen rain like this in November since I started farming.

"I'm no spring chicken either.

"It has put a big dampener on a bumper harvest."

Culcairn farmer Dustyn Wild has had 135 millimetres this week.

"One of my neighbours took a backroad from Morven to Gerogery and he had several hairy experiences," he said.

"I can't see us cropping for two weeks."

Jindera resident Brideh Masterson, a year 7 at Culcairn's Billabong High School, was picked up early from school due to the mass of water banked up around the grounds and roads.

Billabong High School had earlier issued a notice to parents that buses to Henty and Holbrook would run at lunch time to get students home safely while it was advised students from Jindera could be collected from the school.

Brideh described the "crazy rain", which caused localised flooding across roads and great waves of water to wash up the side of vehicles on the drive home.

Across the border in Wodonga, it was nervous wait for race-goers attending the Gold Cup who hoped for fine weather.

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The rain cleared for most races, but Racing Wodonga's general manager Steve Wright said it could have deterred up to 2000 attendees.

"There's definitely some general admission that didn't come because it was a bit wet at the start," he said.

"All in all though I'm just happy we got to race because this time yesterday I thought we weren't going to."

It was the first time there had been a crowd at the event since 2019, with COVID resulting in last year's cup day being devoid of onlookers.

Among the estimated 5000 trackside was Kev Poulton, watching on as Wodonga mayor for the first time.

"You saw a few made a last minute decision not to attend," he said.

"I saw a few on social media last night some people looking to sell their tickets, but in the end it was good to see people braving it and getting out.

"It was a very safe crowd and a very happy crowd and it was good to see something back to normal."

With no mask-wearing rule to meet, the main by-products of COVID were requirements to scan QR codes for admission and show evidence of vaccination against the virus.

There were not long entry queues despite those rules operating.

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