NSW Faces Final Day of Widespread Rain

Here's the radar since early Thursday morning, we're looking at about the last 12 hours here. There's a couple of things I want you to draw out of this radar loop here. Firstly, fairly extensive falls being reported from, well, southern or even central Queensland right down to the far south coast of New South Wales. But secondly, you can see there's a gradual drift eastwards as most of that rain is making its way towards the east coast through the course of the day on Thursday, and that's going to continue. So if this rain keeps moving this way, you're going to see it eventually move out over water and away from the country.

There has been a lot of rainfall though in the last couple of days. This is 24-hour rainfall totals up to 9 a.m. this morning. And the heaviest falls are where we see this red dot here, Port Macquarie, 150mm over that 24-hour period. And actually since 9 a.m. on top of this rainfall, about another 50mm. So that's 200mm in just over 24 hours. It has been very wet across Port Macquarie. Other spots which have seen significant rainfall include Sydney, which had 80mm in this 24-hour period here. That's over the average August month's worth of rainfall there. Wollongong looking something similar, around 70 to 80. Also up here around Byron Bay, as well as some reasonable falls through inland parts, including the New England and North West Slopes and Plains regions in northern New South Wales.

Let's take a look at how this is expected to continue through Thursday, and really through Thursday we'll continue to see everything gradually drift towards the coast. That means the rain will clear over inland areas during Thursday afternoon and evening. It might linger along the coastline from Sydney all the way up to Brisbane, right through until the end of the day Thursday. But as soon as we pass midnight, get into Friday morning, it's really going to look like a lot of that rain pulls away from the coast. See how the drier weather sets in just across the coastline as the weather pulls out into the ocean.

So overnight tonight, we're looking at a fairly significant clearance of the wet weather. So as you wake up and get into your day tomorrow, on Friday, much drier conditions across the country, maybe one or two spotty little light showers. But the widespread, persistent ongoing rainfall will all be done by tomorrow morning. There will still be some reasonable totals through the rest of the day on Thursday, particularly along the coastline. Could see up to another 50mm or so anywhere on the coast from about Batemans Bay or Wollongong, all the way up to the far northern tip of New South Wales, potentially even into the far southeast of Queensland.

There are still some Flood Warnings in play at the moment across northern parts of New South Wales. These are rivers where we're already starting to see those levels come up. They have had the warnings issued. There are four of them at the moment, including the Major Flood Warning across the Namoi River in the New South Wales North West Slopes and Plains region. We also have a Moderate across the Peel River that runs right through Tamworth and that's expected to peak later on today, potentially into early tomorrow. A Minor Flood Warning is in place for the Barwon River, and we also have a Minor Flood Warning in place for the Nepean River, based on that heavy rainfall through Sydney yesterday and overnight last night.

There's a broad Flood Watch though, and these are rivers that could still see flooding both as a result of today's rainfall. But also sometimes it just takes 12 to 24 to 36 hours for the weather to roll downhill and get into the river network. So some or all of these rivers may experience flooding in the next couple of days. It may not be Thursday, may not even be Friday, might not be until the weekend where some of these rivers will start to peak.

Compared to what we had been looking at, there has been a major change around this part of the country here. The southern area through the Hunter, around the Sydney area, even into the Illawarra, now sees the risk of minor to moderate flooding in the next few days, including right along the Hawkesbury Nepean, where we could see those elevated flood levels, up to the Colo River as well, as well as Wollombi Brook, here, just north and inland of Newcastle. We maintain the risk of minor or moderate flooding across large parts of northern New South Wales as well.

So if you do live along eastern or north-eastern parts of the state, definitely stay up to date with the latest weather warnings, Flood Watches and Flood Warnings. They'll be updated throughout the rest of the day today and over the next few days, as we monitor that rainfall, how it's falling, where it's moving, and how those rivers are responding. So do keep a close track on what's going on.

For today, thanks for watching.