Health News at Your Fingertips

The Bureau of Meteorology has finally cancelled a thunderstorm warning for Sydney after having one up there for hours.

Big rainfall totals today include:

• 102mm of rain recorded at Monavale Golf Club in the 3 hours to 3:30 pm.
• 124mm at Forestville in the 6 hours to 1:40 pm.
• 118.5mm at Allambie in the 6 hours to 1:30 pm.
• 128.5mm at Mosman in the 6 hours to 12:30 pm.

Meanwhile the NSW SES has no fewer than 64 evacuation orders in place, covering 52,723 people. There are also 17 evacuation warnings in place for another 18,000 people.

Among the most recent orders to leave include Narrabeen on Sydney’s northern beaches. Those beaches are also being hammered by hazardous surf that will last into Thursday for a lot of the NSW coast.

Fortunately, the forecasts also point the east coast low heading off into the Tasman Sea, but windy conditions will last for another day. And then a bit of sunshine for a day or so for Sydney at least.

People living in low-lying areas in Camden have been inundated with rain, the river spilling out onto surrounding streets, causing road closures and traffic chaos.

The Nepean River at Camden Weir peaked at 12.04 metres earlier today.

Patrick Mavroidis lives in Kirkham, next to Camden, and had been watching flood waters rise on his parent’s property, anxious as it inched closer to the highest level in the past 100 years.

We had heavy rains last night, but we didn’t expect it to get this high. We received an evacuation order, but I told my mum, we’ve got nowhere else to go. But look, if the water crosses the 100-year line, we may have to re-evaluate.

It’s disheartening, honestly. I’ve lived here my whole life, and it happened twice. There’s just a sense of anxiety that hangs in the air while we wait.

Mavroidis said some of his friends had seen their businesses severely affected by the floods and the community was struggling.

It’s pretty rough, I’ve got a couple of mates in Picton who lost their businesses from this. To see them go through this again is hard.

And then after the flood waters recede, there’s the cleanup, it could take ages to get done, and for us to recover.

There’s a lot of interest in what has been happening to Sydney’s dams, which as you may not be surprised to know are again at 100% capacity today, and most are spilling.

The biggest of those dams is Warragamba, which makes up a monster 80% of Sydney’s total storage.

Here’s what we know about its spills – now coming off its peak rate of 400 gigalitres a day (or about 80% of one Sydney Harbour).

Downstream is the (flood-prone) Hawkesbury-Nepean rivers, where flood levels are at close to or above last March’s peak levels. In places such as North Richmond, those levels are still rising.

Residents in western Sydney living near the Nepean and Georges rivers were issued with evacuation orders on Monday night amid rising floodwaters and heavy rainfall.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued multiple flood warnings as the Nepean River peaked at 15.91 metres at the Menangle Bridge and the Georges River peaked at Liverpool Bridge at 4.39 metres.

Locals in Chipping Norton said they were accustomed to rising river levels but hadn’t anticipated it would flood so quickly this time.

The Guardian spoke to Anthony Lippis, a truck driver who lives just off Newbridge Road who lost his car to the flood waters, as well as the first level of his home. He had been driving his dinghy up and down the now inundated road with his brother in law, helping his neighbours and making sure everyone was safe.

We’re not joy riding up and down this street. We do it for a reason because we know from experience that people usually need help. We’ve been out since 4am.

We don’t really feel supported either, we didn’t get the evacuation message until 1.15am this morning and we were already underwater by then.

Angelo Testa and Oliver Bucha also steered their dinghy along their street in Chipping Norton, helping neighbours and transporting supplies.

Testa, a boat broker, said the first level of his parent’s home was completely under water, and that it was the second time in three days their home had flooded.

We had a guy walking through last night, with water up to his neck. We picked him up and took him to the end of the street. We’ve had people stuck in their houses, who had initially decided to wait out the flood but found they couldn’t.

But we can’t really complain, we’ve seen what’s happening in Lismore and Queensland, this water will go down. It is what it is.

The New South Wales education department is urging parents to get in touch with their children’s school directly or check the school’s social media pages for an update to see if they are closed due to flooding.

Over 200 schools were closed across the state because of the wild weather, with some in western Sydney forced to evacuate students due to rising floodwaters.

A spokesperson for the education department said:

Due to varied local circumstances, principals will directly communicate the student travel arrangements to their community.

Students and parents are reminded to please stay safe. Never enter flood water. If it’s flooded, forget it!

Flood water may be deeper or faster flowing than it appears and can contain hidden debris.

Keep up to date through the Live Traffic NSW, BoM and SES websites.

For updates about your child’s school visit the department’s school safety webpage.

One of Australia’s largest philanthropic donors to medical research has suspended ties with the University of Melbourne after last week’s awarding of honorary doctorates to six white men.

The Snow Medical Research Foundation informed the University of Melbourne on Monday that it had suspended the institution from its Snow Fellowship program, as its “outcomes on gender equality and diversity do not align with the values of Snow Medical”.

The nonprofit donated $24m to the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus and last year granted two Snow Fellowships, totalling $16m, to the institution.

Snow Medical said in a statement:

Unfortunately, last week the University of Melbourne awarded their most prestigious award, their honorary doctorate, to six white men.

Further, in the last three years, not a single honorary doctorate has been awarded to women or someone of non-white descent. This is unacceptable.

Read the full story:

The suspension of mutual obligation for jobseekers and others on Centrelink payments has been extended until 17 March.

A Department of Education, Skills and Employment spokesperson told Guardian Australia on Tuesday the suspension would apply to the following regions:

• QLD: Brisbane South East, Darling Downs, Somerset, Wide Bay and Sunshine Coast, Wivenhoe, Gold Coast.
• NSW: North Coast, Sydney Greater West, Sydney South West, Sydney North and West, Illawarra South Coast, Hunter, Mid North Coast

Before the announcement, mutual obligation requirements – such as job search and job agency appointments – had been scheduled to resume on Wednesday.

For more information, jobseekers can visit this government webpage.

Floods are causing “mayhem” around the Manly area, with some parents unable to pick up their children from school and those out on the streets greeted by flash flooding.

One video of Mackellar Girls shows students inside their classroom this afternoon watching as a white BMW floated past the room.

“It’s going in a pretty straight line, to be honest,” one of the students can be heard saying. “They better have insurance.”

One parent at the school said her daughter had to wade through water to get out of the school.

An email was sent about 1pm advising us to pick up kids from Quirk Rd. They were calling kids’ names as we arrived over the loud speaker to leave.

Water was over the top of cars and spilling into the bottom levels of the lower blocks. My daughter had to walk through knee-deep water to get out as she was in the hall. The hall had started to flood as it’s on Campbell Parade side.

On Facebook, another parent said she could not get to the school safely in time, and that her daughter had been moved to a higher level until the rain subsided. The NSW Education Department said it was working on a statement but it’s believed the school has now been evacuated.

“Manly Vale is where Mackellar is and all water from the dam flows that way! It’s mayhem around here,” the parent said.

The Roseville Bridge has flooded, with images showing cars unable to cross.

Resident Roslyn Jan said she went into an appointment at the Audiologist in Dee Why for an hour, and when she came back out the roads were flooded.

[There was] 10-20cm flooding in areas on Dee Why Parade and Oaks Avenue. I have a low car, a Honda Integra, so I headed home.

Another video posted by a resident who lives near Pittwater Road showed the water level had risen to just under the door handle of a car. Vehicles were stranded in the middle of the road.

“Yeah, we are locked in. Flooded,” she said.