East Coast weather warning: NSW residents prepare for severe weather, wild winds

Residents in NSW are hunkering down as a severe weather system bringing damaging winds bears down on the state’s southeast.

A series of destructive cold fronts have slammed the nation’s southeast, including Tasmania, where thousands of homes lost power and some residents prepared to evacuate amid rising flood waters.

The wild weather was forecast to ease in Victoria and Tasmania on Sunday and Monday as a massive cold front tracked eastwards to NSW, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

“It’s in the early hours of (Monday) that the winds about the east coast of NSW will really start to increase,” senior meteorologist Sarah Scully said on Sunday.

A severe weather warning for damaging winds has been issued from the Victorian border north to Newcastle and inland to the Snowy Mountains and ACT.

Wind gusts up to 120 km/h are possible until Monday afternoon.

“Winds of these strengths do have the potential to bring down both trees and branches that may cause property damage, also bring down power lines that could lead to power outages, and also loose objects may be blown around and cause further damage,” Ms Scully said.

Tasmania was battered by severe weather at the weekend, with significant damage to trees, properties, power lines and infrastructure.

A flood emergency warning was issued for residents near the Derwent River, Meadowbank to Macquarie Plains and Styx River, Bushy Park to Macquarie Plains and surrounds.

The River Derwent below Meadowbank Dam was likely to exceed the major flood level of 7.3 metres overnight on Sunday and into Monday, the bureau said late on Sunday.

People in southeast Tasmanian towns on the Derwent - including Meadowbank, Glenora, Bushy Park, Gretna and Macquarie Plains - were urged to enact flood emergency plans and prepare their properties.

Provider TasNetworks said there were more than 150 outages late on Sunday with about 10,000 customers without power.