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Heavy rain & gusty winds continue to affect southeast NSW near an offshore trough. Deep E'ly winds and a developing monsoon and lows bring heavy rain also to northeast Qld and the NT's north. Storms over southeast Qld and WA's interior with troughs.
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Today, 12:00AM UTC
Week of large surf for NSW under active Tasman and Coral seas
An active Tasman is bringing large and unruly surf to southeastern NSW, with the Coral Sea awakening and sending waves into southeast Queensland in the coming week. Ocean conditions across NSW’s South Coast rapidly deteriorated on Friday as a deep feed of easterly winds whipped up large and dangerous surf. The Batemans Bay Surfrider buoy recorded an increase of nearly 3 metres in significant wave heights in the 8 hours to 9pm on Friday. Image: Significant wave height recordings from Surfrider buoys off Sydney and Batemans Bay’s coasts between Friday and Saturday. Source: Manly Hydraulics Laboratory. The surge of large east-to-southeast swell moved up the coast throughout Friday and into the weekend, with maximum wave heights reaching over 9 metres off the Sydney coast on Saturday morning. A Coastal Hazard Warning for Damaging Surf was issued for coastal areas south of Seal Rocks around this peak period of swell activity, but has now been cancelled with a Hazardous Surf Warning remaining in place. Video: 10 metre wind speeds across the Tasman and Coral seas over the coming week showing areas of swell generation directed towards Australia’s East Coast. As seen in the video above, storms in both the Tasman and Coral seas will continue to blow strong easterly winds over much of the coming week, directing persistent swell towards the East Coast of Australia. While the largest waves were experienced on Saturday, the swell is not expected to drop below 2 metres across much of coastal NSW between the weekend and much of next week. Video: Significant wave heights across the Tasman and Coral seas over the coming week. Coasts between Jervis Bay and Seal Rocks, including Sydney, will receive the highest energy across the period, with much of this energy coming from longer period swell from the east to southeast. This combination of size, period and direction is particularly notorious for causing significant coastal erosion, disruption to port, ferry and maritime operations, and bringing deceptively powerful surf and rip currents. Video: Peak wave period across the Tasman and Coral seas over the coming week. From mid-next week, a constant run of east to southeast swell should provide excellent waves across the prime point breaks of northern NSW and southeast Queensland as the tropics awaken.
17 Jan 2026, 9:14PM UTC
Flash floods in Sydney, Illawarra and Central Coast with weekend deluges
Intense and heavy rainfall on Saturday and early on Sunday has brought flash flooding to parts of the Greater Sydney Metropolitan region. Rainfall rates between 80 and 140mm in one to three hours were registered across parts of Sydney’s Northern Beaches and Central Coast on Saturday afternoon and evening. In some areas, these rainfall rates are comparable to the tropics and are equivalent to one in 200-to-500-year events. This intense rainfall was caused by a deep feed of moist easterly winds coming off the very warm Tasman Sea, directed over the region by a coastal trough. Video: 6-hourly rainfall estimates and rain gauge observations since 9am on Saturday morning. Further heavy falls have continued overnight, with many locations experiencing their heaviest rain in one to two years. Notable 24-hour rainfall accumulations to 9am Sunday include: 346mm at Palm Beach Golf Club 264mm at Great Mackeral Beach 260mm at Wattamolla 250mm at Pearl Beach 242mm at Woy Woy 209mm at Ettalong 194mm at Avalon 180mm at Terrey Hills (wettest day on record for the station, with records since 2005) 129mm at Norah Head (wettest January day on record, with records since 1996, and wettest day since October 2020 – 5 years ago) 134mm at Wisemans Ferry (wettest day since March 2021 – nearly 5 years ago) 124mm at Sydney Obs Hill (wettest January day since 1988 – 38 years ago) 103mm at Bankstown (wettest January day since 2001 - 25 years ago) It was the wettest January day on record (records since year) for these stations: Camden Aiport (140mm - since 1943), Penrith (105mm - since 1996), Mount Boyce (142mm - since 1995), Campbelltown (126mm - since 2007) and Gosford (125mm - since 2014) Over 90 locations across NSW with over 100mm Image: Estimated 24-hour rainfall accumulations and rain gauge observations since 9am on Saturday across the Greater Sydney Metropolitan region. Flash flooding across the region has disrupted road and train networks, with Sydney Trains having to halt rail movements between the Central Coast and Sydney. Flooding, combined with strong winds, has caused trees to fall across roads, houses and powerlines, with the SES and power networks responding to thousands of calls for help and outages. Flood prone areas like Narrabeen Lagoon in Sydney’s Northern Beaches have also been evacuated. Over 19,000 lightning strikes have also been recorded within 100km of Sydney since midnight on Friday, most of which were over the northern suburbs and Central Coast areas. Heavy rainfall continues to move into the Sydney Basin this Sunday morning, but conditions are set to improve as the day goes on. As seen in the animation below, the heaviest falls should contract north and offshore into the afternoon, with showers and more isolated heavy rain expected into Monday. Video: 6-hourly rainfall rates and 10m wind speeds according to the high-resolution ACCESS-C Sydney computer model. Keep track of the latest weather warnings on the Weatherzone Weather Warning page.
16 Jan 2026, 10:07PM UTC
NSW heavy rain wraps north while lows brew in the tropics
Heavy rain that fell over the NSW South Coast on Thursday and Friday has edged north overnight, with over 100mm falling in the 24 hours to 9am Saturday over the Moruya and Ulladulla regions, with 80mm over parts of the Illawarra. The rain has followed a low pressure system and trough offshore. With the heaviest rain wrapping around the southern part of the low, as its axis edged north, the rain went with it. That pattern will continue today, with the heaviest rain over the coming 24 hours expected in the Illawarra, Sydney and Hunter regions. Daily falls exceeding 100mm are again expected, aided by isolated thunderstorms. Image: Radar and overlaid model wind streamlines between Thursday night and Saturday morning, showing heavy rain bands wrapping around in the southeasterly winds to the south of a clockwise turning low offshore of NSW. Image: Side by side comparison of 24-hour rainfall to 9am Friday 16th (left) and Saturday 17th (right) showing northward migration of the heaviest rain. Meanwhile, heavy rain has also yet again affected east Qld, with a continuing deep easterly airstream and another trough axis bringing heavy rain to the area inland of Mackay on Friday. Further north, the monsoon trough could help trigger a tropical low over the Gulf of Carpentaria later this weekend or early next week, maintaining moisture flow into northern Qld. Further north again, a mass of cloud can be seen near Darwin. This intense convection is expected to form a tropical low in the coming 48 hours, and the northwest Top End region is on Flood Watch. The low should drift west after formation, with a high chance of developing into a tropical cyclone to the north of WA during next week. If cyclone development happened before crossing over WA waters, this would be the second cyclone to form over the Northern Region this season, following tropical cyclone Fina in December. Whichever cyclone forms next will be the 7th over Australian waters this Wet, which has been a very active early season. The next comparable season for the number of early tropical cyclones is 1996/1997 when 7 cyclones had developed over Australian waters by mid-January. Image: Forecast accumulated rainfall to 11pm AEDT Monday according to the ECMWF model.