A north-west cloud band is causing widespread rain and thunderstorms over Australia this week.

Part of this extensive cloud band has been causing rain over western, central and southern districts of NSW during the past couple of days, which will continue over multiple inland districts today.

North-west cloud bands occur when a stream of moisture from the Indian Ocean flows over Australia from the north-west to the south-east.

In other parts of the world, similar cloud bands are called "atmospheric rivers".

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Drier weather will return to most of NSW by Friday as the cloud band moves over the Tasman Sea towards New Zealand.

As we head into the weekend, the weather pattern will shift and cause showery onshore winds to develop in eastern NSW as high pressure maintains drier weather in the state's west.

This will be the setup during the first half of next week as well, with showers more likely in the east than the west.

Looking further ahead, there are early indications that another rain-bearing north-west cloud band could pass over NSW towards the end of next week.

While this system has the potential to cause widespread rain across the state's inland districts, there is a fair bit of model uncertainty regarding how it will play out.

If it does eventuate, the rainfall would most likely start to fall around Friday or Saturday next week and spread over NSW from west to east.

More reliable information will become available as models update throughout the coming week.

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