NSW SES & BoM update as heavy rain and winds batter NSW

Australian Community Media

A powerful low-pressure system off the NSW coast is whipping up dangerous surf, strong winds and heavy rainfall, with the potential to trigger flash flooding.

Transcript

00:00What we've seen overnight obviously many communities had a very sunny fine day

00:05yesterday. Went to bed but overnight and waking up this morning they're finding

00:10that there are some strong winds and some significant rainfalls that are

00:14happening right across the east coast from up in the north at Coffs Harbour

00:18right through down to even the New South Wales Victorian border. So it's a very

00:24significant widespread dynamic and complex system. We do expect that we will

00:30see wind gusts in pockets of up to 125 kilometres per hour. We do expect that we

00:37will see rainfall from moderate to heavy in many areas from 50 millimetres right

00:45through to 150 millimetres and in some pockets isolated rainfalls of in excess

00:50of 200 millimetres. Whilst the impacts at the moment are more in the mid north

00:56coast area we are seeing impacts already in Sydney and Illawarra and down the

01:02coast. These as this system tracks southwards we will expect to see greater

01:08impacts from mid afternoon today into tonight and tomorrow for the Sydney

01:13Illawarra and south coast areas. This system will continue to move southward and

01:20likely remain active until at least Thursday. So for communities in New South

01:26Wales along the coast you can expect the most impacts from midday today right

01:33through tomorrow. Now in terms of those winds it's likely that we'll see some

01:39damaging winds of around you know 60 to 70 kilometres an hour and gusts of about 90

01:44to 110 kilometres an hour. That includes across parts of the ranges but also nearer

01:48the coast. This includes southern parts of the mid north coast, the Hunter, Sydney and

01:53down through the Illawarra and parts of the south coast. Now as we start to see

01:57that low pressure system deepen further today and move a little bit further south

02:00the threat of destructive wind gusts is going to increase. So what we're talking

02:04about here is destructive wind gusts of around 125 kilometres an hour being

02:08possible right along the coastal fringe and we're expecting that that risk is

02:12going to shift southwards towards parts of Sydney and potentially parts of the

02:15Illawarra even as far south as Jarvis Bay or Ulladulla. Now this system is quite

02:20dynamic and quite vigorous and we're expecting conditions to escalate through

02:24the afternoon. What this means is that's why we're looking at that wind potential

02:28increasing but also that threat of heavy rainfall increasing. This is most likely

02:33for areas across the Illawarra as well as parts of Sydney. This means that we have a

02:37greater flash flood risk and with potential for some fairly heavy falls to

02:41develop over a short period of time and we could see some of those falls in

02:44excess of 100 or 120 millimetres over the course of three to six hours. So that

02:49is one thing to be prepared for but what we will see in terms of some of these

02:53conditions easing is once we start to see that low weaken and shift further

02:57offshore. So in terms of the timing of that we are still expecting the low to move

03:01further south through tonight and that rainfall threat will shift down towards the

03:06southern parts of the New South Wales coast but then we start to see numerous low

03:10pressure centres within a broader area of low pressure across the Tasman Sea and

03:14that's when we'll start to see conditions ease in New South Wales. So at this stage

03:18the earliest that we'll see some of those warnings being cancelled from the

03:21weather side of things is going to be potentially later Wednesday or more likely

03:26on Thursday with that wind threat persisting into Thursday.

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