20 June 2007

Third Severe Weather Event for NSW this Month

Last night a low pressure system in the Tasman Sea brought dangerous weather to the NSW coast. This is the third time that an East Coast Low has impacted the NSW coast in the last two weeks.

The intense low produced sustained winds around its centre of more than 100 km/h. At its peak, at 6am this morning, the centre was about 400 km east of Sydney with a pressure of 980 hPa.

The strongest winds remained off the coast. Ships around 20 km offshore from Nelson Bay and Ulladulla reported sustained wind speeds of over 90 km/h at 4am and 7am this morning. The maximum land wind gusts reported were 93 km/hr at Green Cape on the South Coast, 98 km/h at Point Perpendicular on the Illawarra Coast, 80 km/h at Wollongong, 85 km/hr at Sydney and 78 km/h at Newcastle.

Waves offshore from Port Kembla increased from 2 metres at midnight to 6 metres around midday with maximum waves exceeding 10 metres. Dangerous surf will continue to affect the coast today and tomorrow. The latest offshore wave heights are available from the Manly Hydraulics Laboratory.

Rainfall in the 24 hours to 9am was largely confined to the southeastern parts of the state. The highest totals reported include 64mm at Eden and 55mm at both Sydney and Robertson.

Only 9mm was recorded at Newcastle, but rainfall over the past two days in the Hunter Valley has caused a renewal of river rises along the Hunter River and several streams that feed into it. This could lift the river level at Maitland towards minor flood level on Thursday. The latest warning is available at NSW Weather and Warnings.

The cold temperatures associated with this system also brought snow falls through the Central and Northern Tablelands of NSW. Reports ranged from 1cm at Guyra to 2cm at Orange, 10cm near Lithgow and 12cm at Katoomba.

The maximum temperature on Tuesday at each of Cobar (6.6°C) and Ivanhoe (8.2°C) were the lowest on record for June. At Cobar that is the lowest in over a hundred years. Records at Ivanhoe go back to 1959.

Sydney has recorded 466mm so far this month, making it the wettest June since 1950.

Useful Links:

• Latest Rainfall Maps (point observations)
• Latest Rainfall Maps (contoured, by day, week and for the month so far)
• Latest Weather Observations for New South Wales

For further information contact 9296 1555.