Hazardous surf, up to 140mm of rain predicted to smash the Illawarra

Up to 140mm of rain is predicted to fall within the next week, with around 40mm each day on the weekend. A hazardous surf warning has been issued for the Illawarra coastline on Saturday, as well coastal areas in the Macquarie, Hunter and Sydney.

It's around half of what fell on April 6, when rain and floodwaters washed away cars and leaving residents running for their lives.

Mount Ousley Public School is already taking precautions for this week's wet weather, after their canteen was destroyed and storage areas damaged in last month's deluge.

"We had to pull the canteen out, that's going to be a rebuild," principal Emily Jones said. "We lost a lot of equipment in the last flood so we're doing some proactive action."

Thanks to the help of parents including Joel Scott and Luke Smith, 50 sandbags were filled and brought in to help protect the school's outdoor learning area, and also the playground space to prevent water rushing at speed down the hill towards the canteen.

Wollongong City Council has established sandbag pick-up points at: Bellambi boat ramp overflow car park, Fairy Meadow Beach car park, Fred Finch Park car park and Rex Jackson Oval (on Walker Street, Helensburgh).

Dapto SES unit commander Andrew Short said crews are closely monitoring the weather and they've urged the public to do the same.

"We're focused on actively monitoring the situation, and if it's going to impact us, and the severity," he said.

"It's currently not as severe as what we had last month, but these kinds of weather events are hard to predict to just stay up-to-date."

People are urged to prepare themselves and their home now, not wait until the heavy rain.

"If you've got flood-prone rooms remove items from there," Mr Short said.

Keep up-to-date with the wild weather on the Hazards Near Me app.

Albion Park had the most rain during April with 261mm recorded, this was just 0.2mm off breaking a record for the month. The mean rainfall for April is 75.2mm at this weather station.

Bellambi got 251.2mm of rain last month smashing the month's mean rainfall of 98.3mm. The wettest April day in this location was in 2004 when 304.6mm was recorded.

Kiama had 134.2mm of rain which was slightly higher than the monthly average of 130.7mm. The wettest April had 247.6mm.

Most of last month's rain was on April 6, with 194.8mm in Bellambi, 191mm in Albion Park, 97mm in Kiama recorded during that 24-hour period.