Sydney is bracing for months of rain in a few hours amid record floods in Australia which have claimed at least 14 lives.
The torrential rain - as much as eight inches - is forecast for Australia's largest city and surrounding areas late on Wednesday and early on Thursday, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said.
Tens of thousands of Australians have already fled their homes in hard-hit areas and authorities evacuated a hospital on Wednesday.
“In the Sydney area, we have minor to major flood warnings current,” said meteorologist Dean Narramore.
In Lismore, New South Wales, 370 miles north of Sydney, the body of a man aged in his 70s was found in a flooded apartment, the fourth death in the badly-affected town.
A man's body had been found floating in a main street earlier on Wednesday.
The population of 28,000 people was inundated when Wilsons River peaked Monday afternoon at its highest level since records began in 1880.
Authorities expect the death toll to rise in Lismore and its surrounding areas.
Officials in the state have revealed details of several lucky escapes, including a 93-year-old woman discovered floating on a mattress 20 centimetres from the ceiling in her Lismore home by a police officer passing by in a boat.
The officer dove through a flooded window to rescue her on a "boogie board", a child's version of a surfboard, deputy state premier Paul Toole said.
In nearby Ballina, the main hospital was evacuated.
State Premier Dominic Perrottet said 17 council areas had been declared disaster zones in an "unprecedented situation", and urged people in Sydney to evacuate if they are given the order to do so.
The storms are moving in from Queensland state into neighbouring New South Wales, and rivers in Sydney were expected to start peaking on Wednesday evening.
It comes as dozens of suburbs remain flooded in Brisbane, Australia's third-most populous city 470 miles north of Sydney.
The Queensland state capital had received 80 per cent of its average annual rainfall in just a few days.
The clean-up effort is underway and 8,000 volunteers have enlisted for what is known as the Mud Army, which helps those who were inundated.
