Near record May rainfall in NSW inland city

Heavy rain has fallen across a wide area of eastern Australia, with rainfall totals in the 24 hours to 9am Tuesday exceeding 50mm at several locations in the Central West of New South Wales.

The city of Dubbo led the way with 59.4mm. This equalled the 2nd-wettest May day in records stretching all the way back to 1870.

Gilgandra, Yeoval and Canowindra in the NSW Central West also topped 50mm, while Jervis Bay Airfield on the NSW South Coast had the state’s highest 24-hour total, with 62.2mm.

Rain radar and atmospheric water vapour for the NSW Central West early on the morning of May 26, 2026
Image: Rainfall across NSW from 1am to 9am (AEST) on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, indicating how central parts of the state received heavy, consistent falls over that period. Source: Weatherzone.

What caused the heavy rain?

This was always going to be a wet week across southeastern Australia, with a broad area of slow-moving upper-level troughs and low pressure systems dominating the charts.

Pools of cold upper-level air cause the atmosphere to become unstable, paving the way for wet and stormy weather.

Image: Atmospheric water vapour over Australia from 1am to 9am (AEST) this Tuesday, May 26, 2026.

Will the rain continue?

It is, and it will. A significant rainband is drenching southeastern NSW and the ACT as Tuesday morning turns into Tuesday afternoon.

Canberra recorded 20mm in just five hours between 6am and 11am, and heavy rain is also falling in Sydney, the South Coast and many parts of southern inland NSW.

By the afternoon, rain should develop in eastern Victoria and northern and eastern parts of Tasmania, where a severe weather warning for heavy rainfall has just been issued.

As for Dubbo, an additional 15.4mm of rain fell between 9am and 11am, before the heaviest band of rain began to push south of the city towards midday.

But more rain is in store in coming days for the Central West city of around 50,000 residents.

Image: Dubbo daily forecasts on the Weatherzone app.

With a total of 108mm in the gauge as of 9am this Tuesday, this is already Dubbo’s wettest month in more than two years (not counting the heavy rain between 9am and 11am).

By the end of this week, several other locations in NSW and southern Queensland might be able to claim a similar statistic.

Meanwhile there are no flood warnings yet in place for NSW, however we recommend you keep checking the latest on the Weatherzone warnings page.