The AFL remains confident Saturday night’s Brisbane Lions and Essendon match at the Gabba will go ahead despite a deluge of rain hitting Brisbane in the wake of Cyclone Debbie. 

The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast up to 200 millimetres of rain to drench Brisbane on Thursday before it eases in the 36 hours up until match time. 

The bucketing will put more stress on a Gabba surface deemed unfit for play for last Saturday's NAB AFL Women's Grand Final, which was moved to Metricon Stadium.  

Despite the rainfall, the AFL has no doubts the surface will stand up.

"The wicket table has been covered for the past 18 hours and the ground has always drained really well," AFL media relations manager Patrick Keane said.

"Their (Gabba) advice to us is that the ground will be ready to go."

Stadiums Queensland, which manages and operates the Gabba, said the ground was ready to use.

"The Gabba team are monitoring the weather conditions closely and patrons are suggested to come well prepared for expected wet weather this weekend," Gabba manager Blair Conaghan told AFL.com.au.

Lions staff have described the surface as a "carpet", with the wicket area responsible for the AFLW Grand Final switch now repaired.

The rain on Thursday morning has been so heavy that all schools from north Queensland to the NSW border have been shut.

The Lions also cancelled their scheduled training session at Yeronga, in Brisbane's south. 

The drenching will likely keep the Lions from training on the Gabba on Friday morning, meaning they’ll not have trained on their home ground this year.