Weather News

Biggest rain since last winter soaking NSW coast

Parts of the New South Wales coast are in for their biggest downpours since last winter, bringing a much needed drink to gardens and parks but also causing some flooding.

Between now and next weekend widespread 25-to-50 millimetres of rain is likely from the South Coast to the Queensland border with potential for some areas to pick up more than 100mm.

This amount of rain spread out over a week would not do much other than water gardens and parks, clean cars and make the Hills Hoist redundant. However, for some places most of this rain should fall in just a day or two, leading to flooding.

For much of the coast this will turn out to be the wettest week since last winter, but for some it could be the wettest week in more than a year.

A slow-moving low pressure trough is set to linger near the NSW coast with help from a surge of cooling air in the upper atmosphere and also warmer than normal seas.

At times the instability will spread west of the ranges but only to bring the odd, brief heavy fall. Sydney's Warragamba Dam is still at a fairly healthy 88% capacity but this its lowest level since winter and could do with some topping up as we head into a typically drier season.

Among the rain, a few thunderstorms are likely, increasing the rain's intensity.

Some heavy falls have already occurred, 20-to-50mm last night in parts of the Illawarra, Sydney and Central Coast. For some western Sydney suburbs this rain was an eight-month high.

- Weatherzone

© Weatherzone 2017

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