Rains, winds to strengthen as severe weather system hovers off NSW coastline

Australia Broadcast Center

21 hours ago

A "complex and live" weather system is continuing to move further inland in NSW on Tuesday, with the worst to come over the next 24 hours.
Emergency Services Minister Jihad Dib said the system was stretching from the Mid North Coast down to the south coast.
"Just the sheer size of it is enormous, in the last 24 hours alone, the SES has responded to 600 calls," he said.
Jervis Bay has experienced about 120 millimetres of rainfall since Monday, while other parts of the state received anywhere between 50 to 90mm, including parts of the Mid North Coast.
"Now that might seem pretty bad but the terrible thing is that the situation is going to worsen over the course of the next 24 hours," Mr Dib said, particularly on Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday.
The minister said the rains were being felt as far north as the Blue Mountains, down the coast towards near Eden.
"There's multiple systems of lows which bring rain with them, if they join up then potentially we have an East Coast Low, that brings a lot of rain," he said.
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He said the State Emergency Service (SES) had already deployed 1,200 volunteers on standby.
As of 1:45pm on Tuesday, there are two Watch and Act alerts and 14 Advice warnings for flooding and severe weather along the coastline.
The minister said the current system was "much more intense and much sharper" than the prolonged flooding NSW saw in May.
"So what we will see in the next 24 hours is rain but also very strong winds," he said.
NSW SES zone commander Andrew Cribb said there was potential for isolated pocks of heavy rain as far west as Dungog within the Hunter area.
He said the SES expecting to see further waterlogging of grounds, leading to isolated road closures from flash flooding — which could continue over the next 48 hours.
The NSW government and SES are expecting up to about 100mm of rainfall, isolated in parts to 250mm across the state.
"We are worried about the winds, we know the grounds are saturated, there's the potential for trees to be blown over and for other loose items to be thrown around," Mr Dib said.
"The wind could potentially blow up to 125 kilometres [per hour] ... and some [tree] branches might end up becoming projectiles."
Chief Superintendent Cribb said these strong winds would "peak" on Tuesday evening into Wednesday.
He said he was expecting the winds to intensify around the Hunter, the Mid North Coast, the Central Coast and down through to the southern tip of NSW over the next 24 hours.
"The latest weather modelling has shown we're not out of the woods yet in regards to rainfall, we still expect to see significant rain in the Hunter, the lower Mid North Coast," Chief Superintendent Cribb said.
Mr Dib said the rains that fell overnight on Monday near Taree were less than other parts of the state and the "system itself was moving a bit more south".
"That's a promising sign but of course with that comes a caveat that anything can change at any given time."
Mr Dib urged people to stay up to date with information via the Hazards Near Me app and SES or Bureau of Meteorology websites, avoid unnecessary travel and not driving through floodwaters.
He said anyone in vulnerable areas that SES doorknocks should "follow the instructions of emergency services".
"We've been here before, I can fully understand ... this is pretty hard again on the communities," he said, acknowledging flooding in the region less than two months ago.
"I know it's been hard work, we've got a lot of volunteers, our people are tired but we just again ask people to remain as vigilant as possible.
"We will get through this, we've always got through this, we'll continue to get through this."