Australia Weather News

Forbes' Lachlan River in central west New South Wales has peaked, the State Emergency Service says, with at least 100 properties affected by floodwaters.

The SES has already received more than 2,300 calls for help, and earlier called on people in low-lying areas to evacuate, as anyone left may be stranded for up to five days.

The river peaked at 10.67 metres at the Forbes Iron Bridge at about 9:30pm on Sunday.

The SES said the peak was higher than the floods of August 1990 in the same area, which reached 10.65 metres and saw about 132 properties with some level of water inundation.

The flood evacuation remains in place and those that have left their homescannot return.

About 50 people have registered with the evacuation centre at Forbes High School, but most are staying with friends and family and in local hotels and motels.

Nearby Condobolin is expecting a flood peak of 7.3 metres on Friday.

SES incident controller Heath Stimson said the Condobolin community needed to be vigilant, because the floodwaters were not behaving as expected.

The service's spokesman, Nick Aifake, said emergency crews together with the Australian Defence Force were continuing to monitor homes that were at risk of being flooded.

"We will do some air operations to see if the water is coming down, is tracking from the Lachlan River to Lake Forbes into the Forbes CBD area," he said.

Homes affected by water, residents isolated

Forbes SES controller Roc Walshaw said the community had prepared for the worst, but despite fears, the flooding had not cut the town in two.

"I was so elated when I drove through town this morning and ... I didn't have to get a high vehicle to get over the water," he said.

"The alert is not over, the water is still rising in the lagoon basin itself and there are still people isolated around."

Mr Walshaw said there were about 100 homes that were isolated in the shire.

"Some homes do have water through them, but not a great deal," he said.

"Those people who were in the affected area have been moved out ... some have stopped because their house is above water level, but their property might be inundated.

"They are coping because they've prepared for it.

"I'm just so happy in my own heart that is hasn't come to what we thought it would be."

Mr Walshaw said there was still a long road ahead.

"I tell you honestly, this water will stay here for a fair while, at this level," he said.

"It will slowly go down, but it's going to be a long flood because there's so much water around, there's so much water coming.

"But the level of the water will keep it at a moderate flood level for a fair while."

He said the water in Lake Forbes was still continuing to rise and was coming into the town.

"I don't believe it will come up a great deal, but we don't know exactly because it is still rising slowly," Mr Walshaw said.

Jacinda, who lives outside Forbes, said her home has been affected quite badly and she and her family evacuated themselves.

"There's about two foot of water through our house, at the moment ... a lot of houses out there are affected," she said.

"It's coming more that way than heading through town at the moment.

"It was rising fairly quickly, it cuts us off in our driveway first, so then we can't get in and out."

Jacinda Horan said she and her husband both ran businesses in town and they had been impacted by people not coming in to work.

She said she was hopeful some things in her home would be able to be recovered.

"We've put stuff up on bricks, so we should be able to salvage that stuff that's up, as long as it's up high enough, but it will be a massive clean up."

Local resident Mark Pietsch said he was cut off from his home.

"I've had waterfront views of the lake ... but I have been able to get around the town, but I'm just waiting to see what it looks like at home," he said.

"It sort of hit us a little bit unexpectedly there.

"I was thinking that I could get home Friday night, so I wasn't really able to grab anything before the water rose.

"It'll be interesting to see how things look when we get back out there."

Ian Collier and his wife Margaret live in Wombat Street which has flooded, but their home is safe.

"We feel very lucky that the river has peaked for the moment, although I am worried that more rain in the catchment could bring higher flood peaks to the town," Mr Collier said.

Community asked to 'monitor' what is happening around them

SES Lachlan region controller Nichole Richardson earlier said the flood event was unique.

"[The] waters are doing things differently to what we've seen in the past and we are monitoring it very closely with the other emergency services and the Forbes Shire Council," Ms Richardson said.

"At this stage, we haven't seen the town cut and some of the roads that we would normally see [closed] are still open and people are able to move about.

"There are some local diversions in place."

She said recent flooding was exacerbating the situation.

"What we need to remember this time is that we only had a flood peak two weeks ago. We still have major flooding occurring downstream," Ms Richardson said.

"So we've now got this second lot of water pushing through into that already major flood level.

"We are seeing some things happen differently so we're asking the community to monitor what is happening around them, make some safe decisions early."