Central Brisbane, Lismore, Murwillumbah and Grafton are all, as of the time of writing this article, underwater, with several areas of Queensland and Northern NSW setting record-high flood levels. Now, authorities have warned Sydneysiders that part of the state’s capital could be the next areas hit by the large-scale flooding event that has forced thousands of people across two states to evacuate their homes in recent days.
NSW premier Dominic Perrottet warned at a press briefing on the morning of March 1, that “the worst is yet to come”, saying that a severe weather warning for heavy rain and high winds was in place from Newcastle all the way to Bega on the state’s South Coast from the evening of March 1 into March 2. “We know, at the moment, [flood warnings] are focused on the north. But very quickly, as we’re seeing in Metropolitan Sydney now, it will move south.”
Some areas in and around Sydney could record as much as 200 millimetres of rain over a six-hour period during the evening of Tuesday, March 1, into the early hours of March 2. For context, the average rainfall for the entire month of March in Sydney is 118 millimetres, although Sydney also recorded a month’s worth of rain in a single day on February 23, which highlights how persistently abnormal this year's Big Wet has been.
The state’s emergency services minister, Steph Cooke, urged people in Sydney’s most flood-prone areas – particularly in the city's north-west – to prepare for the worst. “We have seen what has unfolded in the northern parts of the state over the past few days. The time to prepare is now – have an emergency services kit prepared with your medications, with your important documents, with your laptop computers, mobile phones and chargers, so we can as best as possible keep track of where you are, that you can contact us if you need to, but more importantly, that you can be prepared to evacuate should the need arise,” she said.
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned that there is likely to be “moderate to possibly major flooding” along the Hawkesbury River into Richmond and Windsor, as well as along the Nepean. In addition to the flood risks, high winds are likely to impact areas prone to coastal erosion and a combination of winds and rain could lead to power outages caused by landslides or mudslides.