Forecasters and emergency services are on high alert as a significant and potentially dangerous weather system barrels straight toward the NSW coast.

The system is predicted to make landfall as early next week, with forecasters predicting heavy rain, damaging winds and hazardous surf along the east coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology is preparing for the system, which is likely to impact the coast as early as Tuesday.

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“(There is) quite high confidence that it is going to happen,” senior meteorologist Angus Hines said.

“We’re still working out the finer details of exactly which areas, and the finer points around timing and things like that, but certainly it is shaping up to be quite a significant weather system.”

A low pressure system is expected to begin forming off the east cost early next week, bringing rain to parts of southeast Queensland and northern NSW, before heading south as it begins to intensify into Tuesday.

“(It will bring) quite a significant spell of weather to the NSW coast during Tuesday and Wednesday,” Hines said.

“At the moment, it looks like the Hunter region and potentially even the Sydney area will be two of those spots that could see the largest accumulations of rainfall, but we’ll also be keeping a pretty close eye on the Illawarra, and the mid-north coast.”

Hines said the system will bring heavy and persistent rain over Tuesday and Wednesday, with early forecast models predicting 100mm to 200mm of rain in the space of a day or two.

“A couple of 100mm will be near the top of the range, but, it’s definitely a watch-this-space because we could hone in and see those numbers climb even higher,” he said.

Extensive strong damaging winds, possibly between 90km/h and 100km/h, could affect large swaths of the state, with a particular focus on eastern NSW, especially between the Illawarra and then the mid-north coast.

Large, powerful waves and dangerous surf conditions along the coast are also possible.

“We could also be talking about some very powerful conditions out on the water, and that’s often one thing we see with these quite intense low pressure systems near the east coast,” Hines said.

“They build up some very large waves, and these waves just get directed straight into the coastline so they can cause obviously very dangerous conditions on the water for anyone in a boat or out swimming or surfing or anything like that, but potentially can cause some inundation and damage along the foreshore as well.

“It’s a pretty high chance that it will be a fairly significant event.”

Severe weather warnings for the event are likely to be issued by BOM as early as Sunday or Monday.

Embedded meteorologists are stationed with emergency services to give them up-to-date forecasts before major weather events.

Warnings can be viewed here.