SYDNEY: Sydney is set to record its wettest year in 164 years as authorities prepare for major flooding in eastern Australia, with heavier downpours expected to fall over the next three days.
As of Thursday morning (October 6), Sydney had received 2,157mm of rain for the year, just short of the record 2,194mm set in 1950, official data showed.
“This record is likely to fall late Friday night and into Saturday,” Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) forecaster Jonathan How told Australian Broadcasting Corp television. It’s only the fifth time the country’s largest city has topped 2,000mm in a year since records began in 1858.
Australia’s east coast has been plagued by a multi-year rainfall event due to the La Nina weather phenomenon, usually associated with increased rainfall, which has caused three floods in suburban Sydney in the past two years and forced tens of thousands of people to flee. Their houses.
With a wild weather system expected to dump heavy rain throughout the weekend across a wide swath of eastern Australia, authorities have warned Sydneysiders to watch for flash floods and stay safe. away from flooded roads.
Many dams and rivers are already at capacity. The New South Wales state government has pledged to raise the height of the wall of Sydney’s Warragamba Dam, which supplies 80% of the city’s water, to help prevent future flooding.
Further showers are forecast for the remainder of 2022 due to the rare occurrence of a third consecutive La Nina weather event.
“As we approach late spring and summer, we are still in this active La Nina period, so we can expect more and more precipitation and that increases the risk of flooding,” said declared How of BoM.
Some of the state’s rural inland towns have already been flooded, with TV footage showing residents moving farm animals to higher ground and damaged roads.
New South Wales emergency crews said there were 47 flood warnings in place across the state, with moderate flooding expected in parts of Sydney on Saturday.
The situation will only become more dangerous over the next few weeks, said emergency services spokesman Scott McLennan.
“Are we at the worst? We don’t know, but we know there’s more water coming,” McLennan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.