A man has died and a truck driver stranded in floodwaters was rescued as parts of South Australia were hit with record rainfall across the weekend.

The driver was trapped in raging waters on the Barrier Highway near Yunta on Sunday.

Dramatic footage shows a LifeFlight rescue crewman winching down to the roof of the truck to lift the driver back to the helicopter.

There’s no immediate end in sight to the huge storm system as it passes through central Australia, bringing widespread downfalls and flash flooding.

Sam May, a farmer 15 kilometres south of Loxton in Pata, said a deluge of weekend rain flooding his property was a “phenomenal event to witness”.

“I’ve never seen it like that, mum and dad have never seen it, and nanna and pop haven’t seen it like this since the 1970s,” May said.

“It was a welcome rain, but we’ve had a bit of a flooding issue around my house. We’re just in process of starting to clean that up now.

“With it being so dry and a drought, any rain is welcome, but it was a bit excessive in four or five hours.”

Footage from the Murray Mallee property shows the extent of the flash flooding on Saturday.

“It’s not particularly catastrophic damage, but obviously wet or wrecked crusher dust and gardens but no physical damage to buildings or anything that we’ve noticed yet,” May said.

Data from the Bureau of Meteorology showed that Loxton got 56 millimetres of rain in the 24 hours to 9am Sunday — its highest March monthly rainfall on record.

Loxton had 82 millimetres across the three days, while the nearby towns of Berri and Renmark also picked up 64 millimetres.

Weather bureau data showed that the Riverland wasn’t the only area of SA to receive torrential rain, with areas in the mid-north and Flinders Ranges hit the worst.

“We saw this heavy rainfall up in the far north-east of the state as far back as a week ago. But it was over the weekend where the more populated areas through the state saw this rainfall move through,” a BOM spokesperson said.

A flooded property in SA’s Riverland after record weekend rainfall. Photo: InDaily

Oodnadatta is a sea of buckets and tarps after being hit in an inland big wet that claimed the life of one man.

The 47-year-old motorbike rider went missing after trying to cross a flooded creek at Eurelia, in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges on Sunday morning. His body was recovered later.

The weekend deluge exposed the lack of weather proofing at the historic Pink Roadhouse, in SA’s arid north on the famous Oodnadatta Track.

The dirt car park out front of the Oodnadatta food stop was a muddy quagmire by Sunday. Locals report they haven’t seen such rain since the 1980s.

Nicole Castagnaro’s Sunday shift was spent emptying the 30-plus buckets and containers dotted throughout the store as the rain kept falling and the roof kept leaking.

“There’s no one around at all,” she said.

“The roads are closed, we’re running out of food, and if the trucks can’t get through, we’ll be stuck eating baked beans for the foreseeable future.”

Oodnadatta had nearly 18 millimetres of rain overnight into Sunday – or more than 10 per cent of its average annual rainfall of 171 millimetres.

It’s been so long since the tracks flooded, most locals had no idea what happened next if food couldn’t be delivered to the town of just 102 people.

“We can’t live on just beans, but I don’t know if the military will airlift supplies – I guess we’ll find out,” Castagnaro said.

Fortunately, the Royal Flying Doctor Service stepped in late on Monday, with a welcome delivery of emergency food.

Braemar Station, 75 kilometres north-east of Burra, had the heaviest weekend rainfall with 203.6 millimetres, including a 24-hour record of 149 millimetres on Saturday.

The Bureau of Meteorology said flash flooding was prevalent north of Adelaide in the Flinders Ranges and Gammon Ranges.

In the far-northern Flinders Rangers, the owners of Moolooloo Station had to forced to delay sheep shearing due to the downpour.

In a video posted to their Facebook page on Sunday, flash floods can be seen destroying a flood gate on the property.

A BOM spokesperson said regions north-east of Adelaide also got significant rainfall, with 175 millimetres hitting Yunta across the weekend.

“All of last year Yunta picked up 158 millimetres, so in two days they saw more rainfall than they saw all of last year,” the spokesperson said.

A truck driver was safely winched from his stranded vehicle. Photo: LifeFlight

The downpour led to the dramatic rescue of a truck driver stranded in floodwaters on the Barrier Highway near Yunta on Sunday. A LifeFlight rescue crewman was winched down to the roof of the truck to lift the driver back to the helicopter.

Areas of the Eyre Peninsula were also drenched, with weekend totals in Minnipa reaching 150.4 millimetres and Wudinna airport 108.8.

“Large parts of the state saw this rainfall and probably the only place that missed out was basically Adelaide,” the BOM spokesperson said.

Republished from InDaily