Desert deluge | Some of Australia's most famous waterless country is awash

At the top and bottom of the world's driest inhabited continent, it is a remarkable conflux of weather.

The feared Tanami Desert which straddles the Northern Territory/Western Australian border was one of the last chunks of Australia's arid interior to be explored after settlement.

A rich wet season bounty across northern Australia has dumped record amounts of rain across the Tanami, closing the sandy tracks which challenge a constant stream of 4WD adventurers.

The Nullarbor Plain from South Australia to WA also has a fearsome reputation as a long expanse of nothingness with incredibly little surface water.

But not today.

Australia was cut in two after a year's rain fell in a few days earlier this month in more of the more remote stretches of the Nullabor from Kalgoorlie to Cocklebiddy.

Outback flooding dangerously cut the nation in two.

The Eyre Highway was closed for a week, the Trans-Australia Railway is still flooded with hopes it can be repaired by Easter.

The Nullarbor's yearly rainfall struggles to reach 225mm most years.

Some remote settlements on the plain have recorded their wettest period in 136 years of records.

Despite their vast distance apart, the Nullarbor and Tanami today share the same weather benefactor.

The northern wet season arrived late but is still producing a rich bounty.

The monsoonal troughs produced the tropical moisture which was funnelled across the Nullarbor earlier in the month.

A weather system parked over WA for several days diverted this moisture to the usually parched Nullarbor.

The same monsoon spawned Tropical Cyclone Megan in the past week which devastated Borroloola on the NT's eastern coast and moved west across the Territory as a tropical low cropping huge amounts of rain.

It has been a wet, wet season.

Much of the rain has fallen across the Barkly Tablelands but a healthy amount has ended up on the Tanami.

While Tennant Creek is still waiting on a weather radar so residents could have seen what was coming, there's not much in the way of other BOM recording instruments in the desert.

One place where we do keep watch on the Tanami is at Rabbit Flat.

It is a former roadhouse in the middle of nowhere which is usually engaged in sorting out the nation's hottest spot - Marble Bar or Rabbit Flat.

The automated station recorded 128mm on Thursday as ex-Tc Megan passed across.

Major NT highways were cut but no surprise to find Tanami Track closed, only about a fifth of it is sealed - although efforts are currently underway to seal a lot more of it.

The end of its ruggedness is a disappointment to some adventurers but all-weather access is critical to those who rely on it.

Those who have ventured there remarked of their surprise to find the Tanami "hillier" than they expected.

It is the low points between the sandy ridges which collect the water and can trap the unwary.

People are also surprised to find the Tanami's annual average rain is just shy of 500mm, vastly different to places like the Nullarbor.

The Tanami regularly gets a flick in the tail of the wet season.

Rabbit Flat has had 611mm already this year.

After all it was actually named after a well on the stock route from Alice Springs to Halls Creek in WA. It's annual average is around 430mm.

The northern wet season historically ends in April, perhaps there's more to come yet.