Sydney was hit by heavy rain on Monday, causing flash flooding and briefly throwing the roads and public transport system into chaos.
Forecasters said the conditions would ease into Tuesday and Wednesday, before the wet weather returned later in the week.
Monday’s heavy downpour hit most parts of the city around lunch time, forcing some road closures, while cars slowly waded through flooded streets elsewhere.
The city’s light rail system went down for a few hours and at least one retail outlet, at Neutral Bay, suffered storm damage.
Sydney’s north shore bore the brunt of the wet weather, with 46mm of rain falling in Manly and 37mm in Mosman. On the other side of the harbour, there were also rainfall totals above 25mm around the Bondi and Rose Bay areas.
The Sydney Observatory recorded 30mm of rain, while some catchments received 14mm in just 20 minutes.
Jordan Notara, a senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, said the deluge was cause by a concentration of showers that had moved from the coastline.
“[That] resulted in a period of time where we saw some heavy show activity,” he said.
But overall the rainfall was “moderate, not heavy”, he said.
Road Weather Alert issued for #Sydney metro areas. This current burst of #rain is making driving conditions potentially hazardous in areas of the city https://t.co/FibWVK7036 pic.twitter.com/iYuH2iwlVN
— Bureau of Meteorology, New South Wales (@BOM_NSW) June 17, 2019
Wore gumboots to work today to brave the rain - who knew they'd come in handy inside the building!? #sydneyweather #wetlab pic.twitter.com/4yDebcaYAh
— Dr Shannon Mostyn (@ShannonMostyn) June 17, 2019
Beautiful Monday morning 👍 Love the rain on Sydney Harbour #Sydney #MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/lN4KYAeAx3
— Damien Martyn (@damienmartyn) June 17, 2019
Notara said any showers on Tuesday morning would be confined to coastal areas before clearing off by the afternoon.
By Thursday, another coastal trough is expected to deepen, with showers forecast up to the weekend, he added.
The rain comes only a few weeks after the NSW government announced Sydney was facing water restrictions for the first time in a decade. Dam levels are at 53.5% across all 11 dams, with Warragamba dam at 54.8% and Woronora dam at 44.3%.
While large swathes of New South Wales is in drought, this week’s rain is not expected to fall where it’s most needed.
“The rainfall we’re seeing is definitely coastally driven and that is not where the most impactful drought conditions are occurring,” Notara said. “So unfortunately all the rain we’re seeing doesn’t move over the Great Dividing Range and into those areas which are needing it most.
“It looks as though in the forecast to come it will continue to see the rainfall mostly confined to the eastern parts of New South Wales.”
Currently, top temperatures are expected to hover between 16C-18C for the rest of the week.
Sydneysiders shivered through a top of 13.6C on Monday.
Rain is also forecast for much of the week in Melbourne, where temperatures are not expected to exceed 14C.
