It never rains, it just buckets down | Coffs Coast News | Local News in Coffs Coast

TORRENTIAL rain fell across the Coffs Coast overnight on Monday and caused flooding along the Bellinger, Orara and Nambucca rivers.

In the 24 hours to 9am on Tuesday, Bellingen received 409mm, bringing its yearly total to more than 3000mm or 3m. It is the fifth time this year that Bellingen has experienced falls of more than 200mm.

Coffs Harbour received falls of 147mm for its wettest October day on record while Dorrigo recorded 198mm.

The heaviest fall in the city was just after 10am on Monday when the Bureau of Meteorology at Coffs Harbour recorded a fall of 42mm in less than 20 minutes.

The wet 24 hours recorded three times the volume of rain which had fallen on Coffs Harbour for the previous 25 days of October.

“The deluge is a result of very humid easterly winds feeding into a trough of low pressure over north-eastern NSW,” said The Weather Channel meteorologist Tom Saunders.

The rain is expected to ease to showers today as the trough weakens. It is the fourth flood event to hit the Coffs Coast in 2009.

Since January, Coffs Harbour has recorded more than 1900mm (more than six feet of rain in the old scale), well above the annual mean of 1668mm.

Nana Glen Public School students were sent home yesterday morning after the Orara River cut the road at Nana Glen.