00:00Days of rainfall to lead to minor, to moderate and even possibly isolated major flooding through parts of northern and eastern New South Wales later this week.
00:10And we can see what's driving that.
00:12Firstly, we've seen these coastal showers last night and this morning, but notice rain now starting to increase across inland parts of New South Wales and southern Queensland.
00:21And that's all thanks to an upper low, combining with moist onshore flow.
00:25And we can see that here in the water vapour image.
00:28A little bit hard to make out, but you can see a bit of a spiral feature in through here in northern New South Wales.
00:34Now that's an upper level low pressure system, and that's going to slowly move eastwards in the coming days and combine with moist onshore flow coming in from the coral and Tasman Sea to bring widespread rain, shower and thunderstorm activity to New South Wales and Queensland.
00:50So let's break that down here.
00:51So by tonight, you can see showers and storms pretty widespread through inland areas, with those coastal showers continuing right along the New South Wales and southeast Queensland coast.
01:01Then, as we move into tomorrow, we'll see widespread areas of rain starting to develop through southern Queensland and northern and northeastern New South Wales to be widespread by Wednesday night, with moderate to locally heavy rainfall.
01:16Then, as we move through Thursday, we'll continue to see this rainfall across eastern New South Wales and southeast Queensland, but eventually moving eastwards on Friday to hopefully be offshore by the time we get to Friday night.
01:30But that is two to three days of rainfall in areas that are already wet and saturated.
01:36So how much rainfall are we likely to see?
01:39We can see here widespread falls anywhere from 30 to 50 millimetres through much of inland areas.
01:45But notice these red areas show 50 to 100 millimetres through quite a large area of New South Wales.
01:52And then we're starting to see if your purple areas get along the coastal parts of New South Wales, and that's falls in excess of 100 millimetres.
02:00Now, this is going to fall on already saturated soils, particularly in parts of New South Wales.
02:06So zooming in there, we can see widespread falls across much of northern New South Wales in that 50 to 100 millimetres range, with isolated falls in excess of 150.
02:17And why we're concerned of that is because these numbers are falling on already saturated soils, catchments, dams and rivers.
02:24And that's leading to issuance of our flood watches that we have issued right across this area for minor to moderate flooding, particularly for some of our coastal and eastern New South Wales rivers.
02:35But our main focus will be our residents and communities for our inland areas, the northwest slopes and plains, particularly for those on the Peel River and also the Goida and the Namoy River, where we could see moderate and possibly major flooding in isolated areas, particularly on the Namoy and the Goida River, particularly if we get more of that widespread 50 to 100 millimetres fall through these inland catchments.
03:00And that does include places like Gunnedah that saw major flooding only just a few weeks ago.
03:05So we're particularly concerned for our residents and communities through inland New South Wales, but also if you live in any of these highlighted river catchments as well, where we could see minor to moderate flooding in the coming days, thanks to that forecast rainfall.
03:18But the reason why we're concerned about the Namoy is we're already still experiencing moderate flooding on the Namoy River, with minor flooding continuing through the Baran River as well.
03:27So with additional rainfall, we're likely to see renewed river level rises and possible flash and riverine flooding as well.
03:35So some of the hazards with this forecast rainfall in these already saturated catchments and soils, particularly through inland areas, could see hazardous driving conditions.
03:43Obviously, this rainfall could lead to possible flash and riverine flooding.
03:47We also could see some possible agricultural impacts as well, with multiple days of rainfall, probably leading to some paddock waterlogging and hard to get out and about on your tractor out there.
03:57So another wet few days on the way for much of northern New South Wales and southern inland Queensland.
04:04So it's always important to be weather aware, watch the rain and storms on radar, and you can always get the latest forecasts and warnings by our app and on our website as well at bomb.gov.au.
04:14And we'll continue to keep you updated here at the Bureau.
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