Bureau of Meteorology hazards manager, Hazard Preparedness and Response Steve Bernasconi speaking in Maitland about extreme weather across the Hunter and Mid North Coast on Wednesday, May 2025.
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00:00Ladies and gentlemen, record breaking floods are occurring in the Manning River today, particularly Tari and Mount George.
00:08Multiple rivers across the region are under major flood warnings, with many others under moderate and minor warnings.
00:17A severe weather warning has been updated today and includes areas as far north as Evans Head, Foster in the south and into the west out towards Walker.
00:30The current situation is a coastal trough that has persisted since Sunday, continues to impact the Coffs Harbour coast today.
00:37As of five minutes ago, moderate rain was falling around the yamber of the Coffs Coast area.
00:42The trough is expected to deepen into a low pressure system somewhere around the mid to central parts of New South Wales coast, Thursday or Friday.
00:53The system is then forecast to move reasonably quickly in the southward direction and weaken over the weekend.
01:02Rainfall is expected to ease along the mid north coast from Friday.
01:07I want to touch base on some of the observations from a rainfall perspective and flood perspective now, with a focus on Tari.
01:14Tari has exceeded its 1929 flood record of 5.9 metres.
01:22It reached 6.37 metres at about 9 o'clock today.
01:28The reason for that is that total rainfall for Tari as of 9am today has also been at record levels.
01:36The two-day totals to 9 o'clock this morning of about 412 millimetres of Tari is a new annual record.
01:42To give context to what that level of rain means is that 412 millimetres is essentially, in two days, is essentially five times the monthly rainfall for May for Tari.
01:55In essence, Tari has received one-third of its average annual rainfall in two days.
02:01In the same region, around Wingham, Wingham has received 278 millimetres of rain in a day.
02:08It's a monthly, daily record for May.
02:11It's likely to break its two-day record as well, once more data comes in from this morning.
02:18And for areas nearby Campsie, 120 millimetres in a day is a new May record for the town of Campsie.
02:25They've had a two-day total of 180 millimetres.
02:28So this is significant rainfall falling over already saturated catchments,
02:32which is leading to and led to floods of record, particularly for Tari today.
02:38I want to touch base on the major flood warnings and flood impacts only.
02:43There are other moderate and minor flood warnings, and the details of those are available on the Bureau's website and also on the Bond Weather app.
02:50But for the major flood warnings, the situation is as follows.
02:56And I'll preface this with, based on the trough becoming a low-pressure system and moving southward,
03:02all of these are possible for renewed rises and further rises.
03:06But at this moment, this is the situation.
03:08For the Manning and the Gloucester Rivers, the Taree, as mentioned, it's a record flood.
03:15It reached about 6.32 metres, surpassing the 2029 record of 6 metres, and also the 2021 flood event.
03:27In Wingham, the river is at major and it is steady at 14.69 metres.
03:33Now, for those near Mount George, we have actually had that flood gauge go offline yesterday.
03:40There has been an outage of the telecommunications in that area,
03:43but we've looked at the downstream data, and with some modelling,
03:47we're actually suggesting that it's very likely that that site will also be above the 2029 record flood.
03:54That said, that will need to be verified and confirmed after the event when the actual data comes in.
04:00And at Gloucester, at major river flooding, you have a steady river at 5.24 metres.
04:08Moving to the Hastings River, at Kindy Bridge, the river is rising at major, and it is currently 9.7 metres.
04:16At Warhope Railway Bridge, it's also rising at 6.5 metres.
04:20And whilst the flooding is considered to be in the minor classification at 7 a point, at 1.27 metres,
04:28it is rising with the high tide, and we're aware that the community there and the SES there have a decision point at about 1.7 metres.
04:36And it may be reaching that of high tide today, so that is a watch point.
04:40In the Hunter River, the Wollandai Brook at Bulga has a flood warning for potential major flooding.
04:47It's currently rising.
04:49It's expected to exceed moderate flooding sometime today,
04:53and it may reach a major flood level of 4.6 overnight tonight.
05:00For the Lower Hunter, moderate flooding is possible.
05:03Renewed rises are expected from Thursday, due to upstream flows and that forecast rainfall.
05:11And for the Patterson and Williams Rivers, renewed rises are possible.
05:15For Dungog at the Williams River, it's reached 8.63 yesterday.
05:20It's now falling to moderate levels, but again, the caveat is with increased rain,
05:25potentially tomorrow and Friday, renewed rises are possible.
05:28At Mill Dam Falls, it's reached about 10.15 metres yesterday.
05:35That's above the 2021 event, but below the 2015 record flood.
05:42And the Patterson River at Goswick peaked at about 14 metres.
05:45It's above the 2021 event, but renewed rises are possible for that.
05:50The weather forecast for today is that persistent, moderate to heavy rainfalls
05:55in the 80 to 150 millimetres for 24 hours are still possible.
06:00Isolated falls of over 200 millimetres are possible.
06:04Consider that with three days of similar rain,
06:06we still have a situation that needs to be carefully monitored.
06:10There is a risk of heavy to locally intense falls
06:12with some severe thunderstorms on the coast.
06:14Fresh and gusty winds are still persisting on the coastal fringe.
06:18The Thursday widespread rainfall in the same realm
06:20with isolated falls of 140 millimetres possible.
06:25The takeaway message is really that record-breaking floods
06:28have occurred along the Manning River,
06:30Tari and Mount George are the particular focus.
06:33Multiple major floodings are occurring in parts of the mid-north coast
06:38and the Hunter, and moderate and minor flooding elsewhere.
06:41This severe weather warning is in effect
06:43and is in place for Evans Head in the north,
06:46Foster in the south and Walker inland.
06:49I'll now hand over to Commander Crib to give the SES response.