Sunny days to return after wettest June in six years - Sydney Morning Herald

Here comes the sun: A ferry makes it way south as a rainbow tries to break through after heavy rainstorms. Photo: Jenny Evans

Giraffes are peeping out of their dens, car washers have sponges ready and emergency workers are pulling on dry clothes as sunshine is forecast to return to Sydney after the wettest June in six years.

There will finally be a chance to drain the dirty clothes overflowing from laundry baskets with rain expected to clear early Monday morning and the rest of the week due to remain mostly sunny.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Olenka Rudewych said there had been more than 240 millimetres of rain in Sydney during the past nine days, making up about 77 per cent of this month's total rainfall.

Force of nature: a large tree has fallen over in Sydney's Hyde Park. Photo: Wolter Peeters

"Generally we expect showers to clear by early Monday morning and the rest of the week should remain mostly sunny with a return to dry conditions," Ms Rudewych said.

The bad weather will take a rain check with the sunniest week since May or April now expected, according to Weatherzone senior meteorologist Brett Dutschke.

"For the first week of July residents can expect an average of nine hours sunshine per day and virtually no rain," Mr Dutschke said.

"There has been a total of just seven hours of sunshine, an average of an hour per day, the cloudiest week since February 2009."

State Emergency Service spokeswoman Sue Pritchard said volunteers were looking forward to a rest after responding to 1211 calls for help, including 600 in the Sydney metropolitan area, since strong rain and wind started to batter the state's east coast last Saturday.

Seventeen of the callers required assistance for animals or people trapped in flood waters and most of the others were about roof damage, fallen trees and minor flooding.

"I think all of our volunteers deserve a rest this week. They have been fantastic of course. A lot of them work full time, they don't even come home, they just go straight from work and out in the field at night," Ms Pritchard said.

It's not just the emergency service workers who are looking forward to the sunshine, reptiles have been stuck on heat pads and giraffes in their dens at Taronga Zoo.

The zoo's spokesman Ben Gibson said workers would be out in force raking and sweeping once the rain stopped.

"The zoo attendance was down due to the weather but we still had huge amount of schools kids coming in for excursions who braved it with ponchos and umbrellas," Mr Gibson said.

Car wash workers are also restocking soap supplies in the hope that customers will return with the sunshine.

Crystal Car Wash Cafe manager Lina Toutonji said she had experienced a stressful week.

"It's been really dead. There has hardly been any customers at all, one day there was just no one," Ms Toutonji said.

"Because of that a lot of the guys who work here have left their job during the last week. They just can't rely on this type of business when consistently raining for 10 days and there are no customers."

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