Australian river swells to 37 miles wide due to flooding, creates its own weather system

Images released by NASA show the change to the Flinders River -- one of Australia's longest waterways -- over the past month, with flooding there at its worst in more than half a century.

CNN meteorologists analyzed the image and said it appeared the river had swelled 60 kilometers wide at some points.

The river is now so big it's creating its own weather system.

The Queensland Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said extra moisture from the flooding helped create a thunderstorm early Thursday.

Australia's billion-dollar beef industry is expected to sustain heavy losses due to the storms. About 500,000 cattle are believed to have died in the flooding, estimated to be to be worth about $213 million (AU$300 million), CNN affiliate Seven News reported.

Many of the cattle carcasses remain, and will pose a health hazard if not buried or burned,

"People have gone through drought, they have come out of years and years of drought, and they have now gone smack-bang into a natural disaster the likes of which no one out there has seen before," Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.

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