Emergency alerts have been issued following heavy rain on the Gold Coast overnight and concerns are growing for communities south of the border.
For the second time in a month Tallebudgera Valley residents have been urged to shelter in place after devastating floods in February.
Gold Coast City Council issued an emergency warning, since cancelled, about life-threatening flash flooding just before 2am.
A watch and act emergency alert for Loders Creek in Southport was also cancelled early today, but evacuation orders have again been issued for communities in northern NSW.
Rainfall totals between 200 to 350 millimetres since 9am on Monday exceeded predications around the Gold Coast.
Coplicks Bridge, in Tallebudgera, received 348mm in 24 hours.
Felim Hannify from the Bureau of Meteorology said the 292mm deluge at the Gold Coast Seaway "an all-time March record" for the area.
"Pretty significant, and even in terms of daily rainfall total it's probably heaviest daily rainfall total probably back to … June 2005," he said.
Coolangatta received about 230mm.
Canungra, in the hinterland, recorded about 160mm.
Mr Hannify said "the worst has past" for the south-east.
"The main focal point has already shifted south into the northern New South Wales region," he said.
As of 7:30 Tuesday morning, about 30 roads around the Gold Coast are affected by flooding, including the Pacific Motorway at Burleigh Heads.
Beaches shut
All beaches on the Gold Coast will be closed today, as dirty and powerful conditions batter the coastline.
"The swell is quite hazardous — there's a lot of movement close to shore," chief lifeguard Chris Maynard said.
"The water has gone a little dirty as well, as expected with a lot of rain we've gotten overnight."
Sandbagging stations are open again on the Gold Coast today.
More than 1,400 were handed out yesterday.
Gold Coast deputy local disaster coordinator Sharon Anderson said there could be more flash flooding on the Gold Coast today.
"Worst case scenario is that we could still have localised flash flooding," she said.
"We feel very comfortable that we have lots of plans in place to cover any sort of heavy rainfall that might occur today."
She said the city was "absolutely" ready to send resources across the border if needed.
Anxious wait
Between 100 and 250mm fell across northern NSW since 9am Monday, about four weeks after floods last impacted the region.
Residents in Tumbulgum were told to evacuate by high tide at seven this morning, with flood waters expected to block access to the small township.
Evacuation orders were also in place for Billinudgel, North and South Lismore, and low-lying parts of Mullumbimby.
The NSW SES has also issued a flood evacuation warning for Condong, in the north-east, and surrounding areas.
A severe weather warning remains in place across the region.
Tweed Shire Mayor Chris Cherry said evacuation centres had been set up at TAFE buildings in Kingscliff and Murwillumbah and at the Salvation Army store in Banora Point.
Cr Cherry said people should stay where they were and avoid roads if it was safe to do so.
"People will have to stay put for a while because it is still raining, we are still getting that water rising," she said.
"A lot of roads have already been compromised with landslides from the previous floods and the ground is so waterlogged now that this event has caused some worsening of some of those landslides."
Cr Cherry said there was a great deal of anxiety and trauma being triggered in the community.
"After five weeks people have very much managed to clean out the flood mud out of their homes — they've managed to set themselves back up, get some white goods again, and now this is happening again," she said.
Some Australian Defence Force personnel remain in the area, assisting with the recovery efforts.
