‘Heading home’: Campers forced to flee as wild storm, heavy rain smashes NSW South Coast

Millions of residents along the NSW South Coast are set to cop a drenching, with conditions so bad that holiday-goers have been forced to evacuate.

On Friday morning, a coastal trough began to develop off the South Coast of NSW, bringing a band of heavy rain and damaging winds and threatening to smash the state’s southeast.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning for residents on the South Coast, with heavy rainfall spreading to parts of Shoalhaven and Illawarra from Friday afternoon and evening.

Senior meteorologist Angus Hines told NewsWire it would be a wet and windy weekend from Newcastle to Batemans Bay, with heavy rainfall tipping to 120mm in some areas.

“Quite a prolonged run of wet weather is on the way,” he said.

The drenching has already begun in parts of NSW’s South Coast on Thursday night, which have copped about 110mm in the 24 hours up to 9am Friday.

“I think we are on the tail-end of, probably the higher-end rainfall, but certainly still fairly wet across areas south of Sydney through the rest of (Friday),” Mr Hines said.

Wild weather forces premature end to holiday plans

Holiday-goers have been told the wet weather could impacts their plans, with campers urged to reconsider their plans as conditions worsen.

Garden of Eden caravan park manager Bea Bamford told the ABC they were forced to turn campers away as the rain hit.

“We had to remove everybody, we had to get trucks and tractors and remove all caravans as best we could,” she said.

“They’re all packing up and heading home.”

The NSW SES have warned of damaging winds reaching speeds of between 60km/h and 70km/h around Jervis Bay, with peak gusts of about 100km/h along the fringe of the coast.

Rain to stick around all weekend

The rain won’t be halting any time soon, either, with wet weather forecast to stick around the Sydney area until Tuesday.

“We have a southeast wind pushing onto NSW for the next several days,” he said.

“That’s going to bring some fairly uninspiring weather – fairly frequent showers, cloudy skies, kind of breezy, temperatures also a little on the cool side of average in the days ahead.”

Saturday is forecast to be hit the heaviest, with lashings of rain smashing Sydney’s metro area.

“Saturday could bring us our biggest overall rainfall totals in Sydney – we could see upwards of 50mm,” Mr Hines said.

He urged residents to keep an umbrella handy, as lashings of rain would dominate the day.

“Really, quite a wet day, you know, the next shower never too far away,” he said.

“It might clear up for a while, but probably will see more rain return within an hour or two.”Mr Hines said the wet conditions may affect weekend plans for the state’s south coast.

“Just when you think you’ve got a gap, you get out of the house and you’re half an hour away from home, maybe that rain starts off again,” he said.

Temperatures to drop over weekend

Aside from the soggy conditions, the mercury is also expected to drop below average on the weekend.

“Sunday is probably going to be a colder one, with a high of 22C in Sydney,” Mr Hines said.

Thankfully, the rain will ease somewhat on Sunday, only to make a comeback on Monday and Tuesday.

”Next week … more showers (are) possible through Monday, Tuesday and possibly even into Wednesday,” he said.

“Certainly between Saturday and Tuesday, (there will be a) prolonged round of showery weather, and over that time those rainfall numbers could tick up, given that we’re seeing that rain for multiple days in a row.”