Australia Weather News

Residents of Alice Springs have woken to thick fog blanketing the streets and cloaking the East MacDonnell Ranges.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology the mass of fog and low cloud was due to significant rain activity and humidity in the region over the past few days.

Senior forecaster Craig Earl-Spurr said while fog was typically rare in Alice Springs, the higher-than usual rainfall in Central Australia had led to an increase in fog events.

"The key part for fog to form is a bit more moisture in the air, so a year like this when we've had a lot more rain events, it does give a greater chance to see more fog events too," he said.

"On average Alice Springs gets one to two fogs a year and that does tend to be more focussed around the winter months in June, July and August."

Mr Earl-Spurr said the fog covered an extensive area of Central Australia, completely blanketed Alice Springs and extended to the eastern states.

"The cloud that brought the rain extends right across into Queensland and New South Wales, so there's areas of fog pretty much all the way over to the Queensland border."

According to the BOM, Alice Springs should expect more rain activity over the next few days.

Showers were forecasted for later today and into the night, with the chance of thunderstorms tomorrow.

Alice Springs resident Glenn Marshall was climbing around Heavitree Gap on the East MacDonnell Ranges overlooking Alice Springs when he captured some incredible photos of the weather event.

"It's spectacular, there's cloud as far as you can see," he said.

Mr Marshall said it was "crystal clear" outwards from where he was sitting, but he could not see any of the town below him.

"I come up here a fair bit and I've never seen anything like it."

The enthusiastic hiker described the scene as similar to one of his previous adventures in Indonesia.

"It's like standing on top of an Indonesian volcano and looking down on the sea down below you and having the islands sticking out of the sea," he said.

Yesterday, water was captured cascading down Uluru and weather authorities said the last time that much rain had fallen in a single August day, had been in 1986.