3 feet of rain sets up 4th round of flood misery for Sydney

More than 30,000 residents of Sydney and its surrounds have been told to evacuate or prepare to abandon their homes Monday as Australia's largest city faces its fourth and possibly worst round of flooding in 18 months.

Torrential rain since Friday caused dams to overflow and waterways to break their banks, bringing another flood emergency for the city of 5 million people.

"The latest information we have is that there's a very good chance that the flooding will be worse than any of the other three floods that those areas had in the last 18 months," Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The current flooding might affect areas that managed to stay dry during the previous floods, Watt added.

New South Wales state Premier Dominic Perrottet said 32,000 people were impacted by evacuation orders and warnings. "You'd probably expect to see that number increase over the course of the week," Perrottet said.

Emergency services had made 116 flood rescues in recent days, 83 of them since 9 p.m. Sunday, he said. Hundreds more requests for help were made Monday.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology manager Jane Golding said some areas between Newcastle, north of Sydney, and Wollongong, south of Sydney had received more than a meter (39 inches) of rain in the previous 24 hours. Some has received more than 1.5 meters (59 inches).

Those totals are near the average annual rainfall for coastal areas of New South Wales.

"The system that has been generating this weather does show signs that it will ease tomorrow, but throughout today, expect more rain," Golding said.

Rain was forecast across New South Wales's coast, including Sydney, all week, she said. The Bureau of Meteorology says up to...