Close to half a month’s rain has soaked Sydney over the last 24 hours and more is on the way, with wet and stormy weather to linger over a broad area of eastern Australia in the coming week.

The rain gauge at Sydney’s Observatory Hill received 45 mm of rain in the 24 hours to 9am on Thursday. This was the city’s heaviest rain since late-November and nearly half of its monthly average for this time of year.

The composite satellite and radar images below show showers and storms over eastern NSW and southeast Qld on Thursday morning.

Image: Observed cloud and rain over eastern Australia on Thursday morning.

This showery weather was caused by moisture-laden air interacting with a low pressure trough and embedded low pressure system. You can see the low spinning off the coast near Newcastle in the animation above.

A series of slow-moving upper-level troughs will maintain this wet and stormy weather pattern during the rest of this week before another upper-trough delivers another burst of rain and storms mid-to-late next week.

This ongoing pattern of instability over eastern Australia will result in consecutive days of rain and thunderstorms over parts of NSW, Qld and the ACT, while also extending into parts of Vic and Tas.

Forecast models are predicting accumulated falls of 50 to 80 mm over large areas of eastern NSW and Qld during the next seven days, with isolated falls of 100 to 200 mm. Accumulated totals of about 30 to 60 mm are also likely in central and eastern Vic and in Tas.

Image: Forecast accumulated rain during the seven days ending on Wednesday, January 15.

Any thunderstorms that develop over eastern Australia in the coming week will have an increased risk of producing flooding due to the abundance of atmospheric moisture. Be sure to check the latest warnings for the most up-to-date information in your area.