Flood Threat Looms for Northern NSW Late Week

So let's break that down here. By tonight you can see showers and storms pretty widespread through inland areas, with those coastal showers continuing right along the New South Wales and south-east Queensland coast. Then as we move into tomorrow, we'll see widespread areas of rain starting to develop through southern Queensland and northern and north-eastern New South Wales, to be widespread by Wednesday night, with moderate to locally heavy rainfall. Then, as we move through Thursday, we'll continue to see this rainfall across eastern New South Wales and south-east Queensland, but eventually moving eastwards on Friday to hopefully be offshore by the time we get to Friday night. But that is 2 to 3 days of rainfall in areas that are already wet and saturated.

So how much rainfall are we likely to see? Well, you can see here widespread falls, anywhere from 30 to 50mm through much of inland areas. But notice these red areas show 50 to 100mm through quite a large area of New South Wales. And then we're starting to see purple areas get across along the coastal parts of New South Wales. And that's falls in excess of 100mm. Now this is going to fall on already saturated soils, particularly in parts of New South Wales.

So zooming in there, we can see widespread falls across much of northern New South Wales in that 50 to 100mm range, with isolated falls in excess of 150. And why we're concerned of that is because these numbers are falling on already saturated soils, catchments, dams and rivers. And that's going to lead into issuance of our Flood Watches that we have issued right across this area for minor to moderate flooding, particularly for some of our coastal and eastern New South Wales rivers.

But our main focus will be our residents and communities, for our inland areas, the North West Slopes and Plains, particularly for those on the Peel River and also the Gwydir and the Namoi River, where we could see moderate and possibly major flooding in isolated areas, particularly on the Namoi and the Gwydir River, particularly if we get more of that widespread 50 to 100mm fall through these inland catchments. And that does include places like Gunnedah that saw major flooding only just a few weeks ago. So we're particularly concerned for our residents and communities for inland New South Wales, but also if you live in any of these highlighted river catchments as well, where we could see minor to moderate flooding in the coming days, thanks to that forecast rainfall.

But the reason why we're concerned about the Namoi is we're already still experiencing moderate flooding on the Namoi River, with minor flooding continuing through the Barwon River as well. So with additional rainfall, we're likely to see renewed river level rises and possible flash and riverine flooding as well.

So some of the hazards with this forecast rainfall in these already saturated catchments and soils, particularly through inland areas, could see hazardous driving conditions. Obviously, this rainfall could lead to possible flash and riverine flooding. We also could see some possible agricultural impacts as well, with multiple days of rainfall, probably leading to some paddock waterlogging, and hard to get out and about on your tractor out there.

So another wet few days on the way for much of northern New South Wales and southern inland Queensland. So it's always important to be weather aware. Watch the rain and storms on radar, and you can always get the latest forecasts and warnings via our app and on our website as well at bom.gov.au, and we'll continue to keep you updated here at the Bureau.