The State Emergency Service (SES) said a deluge of rain isolated 9000 people on the mid-north coast on Saturday, in towns including Upper Thoura, Orma and Darkwood, with the SES responding to more than 600 calls for help since Thursday night, including 12 flood rescues.

The hardest-hit areas were Lismore and Ballina, each with almost 50 calls for help. On Saturday morning, volunteers aimed to clear a backlog of 500 jobs remaining in the Hunter Valley after it was hit by severe winds and flooding in April.

The wild weather prompted NSW Police to open its Public Information and Inquiry Centre on Saturday morning, but it was closed several hours later, as flood warnings continued for Coffs Harbour and the Tweed, Richmond, Wilsons, Clarence, Bellinger, Macleay, Hastings, Orara, Brunswick and Nambucca rivers.

In the 24 hours until 9am on Saturday, northern rivers towns were bucketed with rain, with Alstonville getting a deluge of 237mm, and the mid-north coast towns of Girralong and Bellingen each copping close to 250mm.

Hard-hit areas to get reprieve

Tristan Meyers, meteorologist at Fairfax Media-owned Weatherzone, said after the battering the state received on Saturday, weather was expected to clear by Sunday and continue throughout the week, with hard-hit areas on the north coast forecast for top temperatures of 28 degrees.

"It's actually looking nicer for the rest of the week, so a lot of NSW and QLD will have a nice day on Tuesday," he said.

"Then a front on Wednesday will bring a chance of shower, drop temperatures significantly across the state ... and bring fine autumn weather and chilly mornings."

He said it was impossible to predict if a now-notorious east coast low was in store for the state in the weeks after that, but the next week and a half at least should be clear.

"The [east coast low] systems aren't the most uncommon phenomena – the particular thing with these last two is the duration of them and the strong wind gusts," he said.