00:00Major flooding continues across much of northeastern New South Wales and there is more rain on
00:05the way today.
00:06It's Thursday the 22nd of May, I'm Angus here at the Bureau of Meteorology with the
00:10latest information on this unfolding severe weather situation which has been going for
00:14several days and will continue to do so.
00:17Here's the radar from this morning, in fact let's put it onto loop and we can see a couple
00:21of key changes in the radar today compared to the radar yesterday and the last couple
00:26of days.
00:26Firstly, the rain has become more extensive.
00:29Now there's wet weather from up near Grafton and Coffs Harbour right down to the Illawarra
00:33and inland to parts of the Riverina.
00:35But secondly, this band of rain has become a little more tatty, a bit patchier, there's
00:39a few gaps in the middle, it's like that whole band has just smeared out a little bit from
00:44the last few days.
00:45But there are still some pockets in here of heavier falls.
00:48As shown by the yellow on the map, if we zoom into the east coast we can see some regions
00:53of heavier rain up around Coffs Harbour, south of Port Macquarie, inland of Sydney and Wollongong.
00:58Certainly going to be some further wet weather on the cards over the next couple of days
01:02and that is why we have continued with severe weather warnings.
01:06We've now got two warning areas, we can get a touch more detail if we zoom in a little
01:10bit across New South Wales.
01:11We'll start with the north one because this is the most significant rain which has been
01:16falling.
01:16This is across the mid north coast from north of Coffs Harbour down to south of Forster.
01:21This area has seen so much wet weather since around about Sunday right through until this
01:26morning some places have had over half a metre, over 500 millimetres of rain in that time and
01:32that has led to significant widespread major flooding through these areas.
01:37The rain is starting to taper away, starting to ease off but we certainly could still see
01:42another 80 to 120 millimetres in this area through the course of today before that rain
01:48does ease.
01:49The second area which has a severe weather warning involved is for southern parts of
01:54the Hunter as well as the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and parts of the central highlands
01:58of New South Wales.
01:59This area has not seen nearly as much rainfall as what has fallen across the mid north coast
02:04so we don't anticipate the same level of flood response through here but with 100 millimetres
02:10or so over the next 24 hours through here we certainly could see some areas of flooding
02:15really start to flare up over these regions.
02:18So more rain on the way across parts of New South Wales that is going to contribute to
02:23the unfolding flood situation.
02:25This is the current snapshot of flood warnings for New South Wales but this will change and
02:30get updated as we continue to monitor the rainfall so don't take this as granted for the whole
02:34day.
02:35New warnings could be added or some of these warnings may be upgraded.
02:38This is what we're currently looking at though at 11am on Thursday morning.
02:43Major warnings in place for the Nambucca River, Maclay, Hastings in the north.
02:47Then through these central areas here major flood warnings for the Manning, Paterson, Gloucester
02:51and Wollombie Rivers and we've got moderate flood warnings in place for the Williams and
02:55the Hunter which is of course a key river in this part of the country.
02:59I also want to draw your attention to some of the new minor flood warnings which have been
03:02added a little further to the south inland of Sydney which is just in here.
03:06There are now minor flood warnings current for the Colo River, Hawkesbury River and the
03:11Nepean River.
03:12So some pretty major rivers around that greater Sydney area which are in that secondary severe
03:17weather warning area likely to see significant accumulations through the remainder of the
03:21day.
03:22And the reason that we're now anticipating this rain starting to move southwards in towards
03:26Sydney, the Illawarra down towards the south coast is because the entire weather pattern
03:31in the coming days will shift south.
03:33This is Thursday morning, I'm going to play this loop out until Friday evening, so the
03:37next day and a half or so.
03:39And just watch the gradual movement southwards of this low pressure area, this coastal trough
03:44and all the associated rainfall.
03:46So by the middle of Friday morning, the mid north coast and the Hunter which have been
03:50hit so hard, they'll be clearing up.
03:53Today is the last very wet day for that area but there will be quite a lot of rain around
03:57southern, southeastern New South Wales and eastern Victoria on Friday.
04:01And in fact, a lot of the rain in these areas down here will be reasonably welcome after
04:06a number of dry months through summer and the first part of autumn so far this year.
04:11The key message is though, everything sliding south, rain through Sydney and the southeast
04:15but at the same time on Friday that rain is clearing for those hardest hit areas through
04:20the mid north coast and the northern Hunter.
04:23This is how much wet weather we could see over the next 48 hours or so.
04:27We're pretty widespread 50 to 100 millimetres through New South Wales but thankfully we
04:31have finally lost those very, very high-end rainfall amounts.
04:35We are on the tail end of this event but it is still going on for another one to two days.
04:40There will be significant impacts still as we still have further rainfall today.
04:44Significant, potentially life-threatening flooding along those rivers.
04:48Dangerous driving conditions.
04:49Extensive road closures and community isolation has all been occurring already and will continue.
04:55Lots of damage to crops, trees, properties, power lines is expected for the next few days.
05:00This is what I'm going to finish on.
05:01This is the swell height for the east coast.
05:04Basically south of this low pressure area we're going to continue to see very large
05:08damaging hazardous waves for southeastern parts of New South Wales.
05:12So another day or so and then we can finally say the worst of this event is over.
05:16But during that time stay up to date with severe weather information and flood warnings.
05:21And if that severe weather is happening to you right now then please do follow all your
05:25advice from local emergency services and disaster management.
05:28Thanks for watching.
05:29Have a safe day.
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