Some of the heaviest falls over 100mm hit parts of Sydney and surrounding the east coast of NSW, with more expected over the weekend beginning April 6, 2024. The heaviest hit areas over the weekend likely to be the Illawarra region, but high rainfall totals are expected for everywhere from Bega to Newcastle, NSW.
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00:00 Hello, I'm Angus at the Bureau of Meteorology and we are continuing to see heavy rain affect
00:04 the eastern states.
00:06 Last night it was really eastern New South Wales that copped the brunt of the heavy rain.
00:10 Bands of wet weather sliding southwards down the eastern and central parts of the state,
00:15 including through the Sydney metro area which actually saw some of the heaviest falls overnight.
00:20 Over 100mm of rain in Sydney with more on the way.
00:24 We're going to switch our map from what we've already seen this morning on the radar to
00:27 what is forecast to come with the rain forecast images here through the rest of Friday.
00:33 Note the very strong easterly wind pushing this way from the moist maritime environment
00:38 onto the land, fuelling the upcoming rainfall.
00:41 We will see heavy falls in southern parts of Queensland all the way down this coastline.
00:45 The heaviest rain likely to be near this dashed blue line which is a coastal trough, meaning
00:49 it's these areas here picking up a lot more wet weather through the remainder of Friday.
00:54 There will be some falls, patchier stuff, pushing inland into southern parts of New
00:58 South Wales as well.
01:00 This is our severe weather warning at the moment, covering a large area of eastern and
01:04 southern parts of New South Wales, stretching from around Newcastle in the Hunter area down
01:09 to Bega here in the south coast, including all of the greater Sydney area, all of the
01:14 Illawarra area too, and it does push up into the central Tablelands.
01:18 Through this region we're looking at heavy to locally intense rainfall, that could mean
01:21 100 to 200 mm in the next 24 to 36 hours, and a couple of spots might see more than
01:27 that.
01:28 The heaviest rain likely to occur around the Illawarra escarpment and maybe inland parts
01:32 of the greater Sydney region as well, where up to 300 mm is possible through the course
01:37 of this entire rainfall event.
01:39 We also anticipate damaging wind gusts through this area, exposed places could reach 90 km/h,
01:45 severe thunderstorms are possible which can lead to localised flash flooding, and very
01:49 dangerous conditions along the water, with large and powerful surf and gale force winds.
01:56 Over the course of Saturday we will see a gradual southwards movement to this primary
02:00 rain band going through southern parts of New South Wales, a low pressure area will
02:04 develop along this coastal trough as well.
02:07 By Saturday afternoon and certainly into Saturday evening the rain will be affecting eastern
02:10 parts of Victoria, possibly even northeastern parts of Tasmania, by and large clearing out
02:15 of a lot of New South Wales by the end of the day on Saturday.
02:19 But note this rain band pushes back onto southeastern parts of Queensland.
02:24 So if we zoom out a little bit on Sunday we'll see a much drier day for New South Wales,
02:27 just a couple of showers, rain for Tasmania, rain and storms continuing around this area
02:32 here, southeast Queensland, maybe the far northern rivers area in New South Wales in
02:37 line for another wet and stormy day on Sunday.
02:40 Finally I want to take a look at the flood watches which are in place for rivers across
02:44 eastern Australia because there are a lot of them.
02:47 A broad flood watch covering much of southern and southeastern Queensland and a whole lot
02:51 of flood watches around eastern New South Wales as well.
02:53 We will zoom in a little bit here to get a bit more detail.
02:55 It's hard to make all of them out, there's a lot of them, but there are three rivers
02:59 for inland parts of New South Wales around that broader Sydney region where major flooding
03:03 is possible over the next couple of days.
03:06 We're going to track how much rain falls across these catchments, how quickly these river
03:10 levels rise and we will be issuing the full flood warnings as and when necessary all through
03:15 this severe weather event.
03:17 Stay up to date with watches, warnings and flood information at the Bureau website and
03:21 the Bureau app and as per usual in severe weather, follow all advice from emergency
03:25 services.
03:26 Thanks very much for checking in.
03:27 [Music]