Residents on the NSW South Coast are being warned to prepare for severe weather currently affecting the north east to impact them later in the week.
Heavy rain and flooding are expected to hit south eastern NSW, from the Hunter Region down, from around Wednesday.
“The conditions are expected here in NSW to get worse,” Premier Dominic Perrottet said.
“We do expect the events and flooding that we are seeing in the north east, to move south over the course of this week.”
“We’re at the beginning of a very significant weather event for NSW,” Graham Reader from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said.
“That low will track over the course of the week, down the coast and the second half of the week from Wednesday we are expecting an east coast low to form. We will have severe weather warning, damaging winds, significant seas and swell and flooding continuing through the southern part of NSW.
“The weather will get very hairy and very wild.”
It is yet to be determined exactly when parts of the South Coast will be impacted.
“The bureau is currently monitoring this situation actively and we are expecting to see a renewed heavy rainfall day, likely to be on Wednesday, for southern parts of the state,” the BOM’s Ailsa Schofield said.
“Right now we‘re assessing the risk … in many of our areas the land is already very saturated and very wet, so it means we don’t need enormous amounts of rainfall before we start seeing river rises and the potential for flooding.”
SES Commissioner Carlene York said planning had already begun for flood response on the South Coast, with plans to move emergency resources south as required.
“As it eases in the north part of the state we will be moving resources down into lower parts of NSW,” she said.
“We’ve also called on flood experts from Victoria and SA to come in and assist us.”
A flood watch is current for the Riverine region.
