Rain likely to soak parts of NSW this weekend
Joel Pippard,
Monday August 20, 2018 - 14:00 AEST
Some drought affected areas of New South Wales are a good chance of seeing soaking rain this weekend, but unfortunately some will miss out.
A slow moving low pressure system and trough will be making its way across the country this week before picking up moisture and slowing further over north eastern NSW and southeastern Queensland.
The low should enter NSW on Friday, bringing patchy showers and storms to the west before drawing moisture down from northern QLD and from the Pacific Ocean.
Widespread rainfall totals over Friday, Saturday and Sunday are expected to reach 15-40mm for large parts of the Northern Tablelands and North West Slopes of NSW, and the Darling Downs and Granite Belt of QLD. This includes some areas where the drought is hitting hardest with severe long-term rainfall deficiencies.
The heaviest falls are expected along the coast from Brisbane to about Port Macquarie possibly receiving more than 50mm over the 3 days. These totals could be the highest since autumn, summer or even beyond.
This rainfall looks to extend down the NSW coast with most places east of the Great Divide expecting to pick up at least 10-20mm.
Locations in the Southern and Central Slopes and Tablelands of NSW will have to wait and see as there is significant model disagreement about rainfall chance and amounts for these areas. Unfortunately, some of these places and parts of the far west of the state will miss out altogether.
This system could bring quite substantial thunderstorm activity over the state as well. These storms could produce heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts and even hail, mostly west of the ranges.
While models will inevitably change in their highest rainfall totals, the slow-moving nature of this system brings the best chance of rain so far this year for large areas of northeast NSW.
To stay up to date with the latest rain forecasts visit http://www.weatherzone.com.au/agriculture/?lt=wzstate&lc=nsw
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