Rain Event -30th of April to the 3rd of May.

Wet and windy weather ahead, Thursday we will see a pair of troughs over NSW & QLD deepen, this will trigger rain and thunderstorm arross much of SE QLD and NSW as the day progresses rain with become heavier in Southeast QLD and Northeastern NSW.

200mm+ for the Northeastern NSW & SE QLD with 300mm+ likely near the coast is possible with the majority of rain set to fall on Friday. In SE QLD areas which may pick up some higher volume of rain are the Fraser Coast, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and Gold Coast and inland towards the Wide Bay and Burnett region and the Darling Downs. The system will then track southerly leading more heavy falls along the north coast of NSW late Friday and in to Saturday before starting to ease on Sunday.

Areas likely to experience flooding/heavy rainfall is the areas between the SE QLD boarder & Newcastle, Sydney and further south to the Illawarra and beyond should be spared much of the rain fall from this event with a High pressure system protecting that general area.

In summary the Northern Rivers of NSW are set to experience heavy falls first around Friday then spreading South late Friday and Saturday to Mid North Coast of NSW.

Grounds are already quite saturated with the recent rain event so it will not take much to cause local flooding, Please have your home emergency kits ready... ensuring that you've got all your important documents and even more important than that your medication if you need medication.

As of Tuesday morning 28/04/15 NSW SES are reporting 3,252 outstanding jobs and a total of 169 Flood Rescues have been reported.

These communities below are currently Isolated:
Wollombi/Laguna- 50 (25 properties) for another 24 hours
Woodville- 50 (30 properties) for another 2-3 days
Torryburn 40 people (20 properties) 200 animals for another 3 weeks

Significant support has been provided by:
Fire and Rescue -112 in the field and 28 appliances and 7 strike teams
Rural Fire Service- 384 in the field and 42 IMT and 93 trucks in the field
South Australia SES 31 present and 11 on the way
Victoria SES- 62 present and 69 on the way
Tasmania SES – coming Wednesay

TOTAL Out of Area Personnel = 589 and on the way= 80

So now is the time to prepare for the coming rain so clean your gutters, downpipes and drains regularly to prevent blockages.

For more information on how you can prepare now, visit www.stormsafe.com.au

We will continue to monitor this situation and update as necessary.