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Asbestos warning sign (Stephen Pond/PA Wire)

Australians have admitted to disposing of asbestos illegally - even dumping it in their neighbour's bin - during a COVID-19 home improvement surge, raising cancer fears.

A study of DIY enthusiasts around the country has revealed 46 per cent cited the pandemic as the motivation to start working on projects around the house.

But the Asbestos Safety Eradication Agency (ASEA) - who commissioned the poll of 1506 home improvers - said their data revealed more worrying trends.

Results showed 38 per cent worked on a "risky property" built between 1940 and 1990 - the decades of greatest asbestos concern.

And 28 per cent conceded they had illegally disposed of asbestos, most commonly placing it in their household bin or in their neighbour's trash.

ASEA urged Australians to be aware of asbestos while renovating, saying it was still causing cancer in the country.

ASEA chief executive Justine Ross said hundreds of cases of mesothelioma - a usually fatal form of asbestos-related cancer most commonly found in the lungs - were diagnosed in Australia each year.

"For anyone who thinks asbestos-related diseases are a thing of the past, think again," Ms Ross said at the start of National Asbestos Awareness Week.

"Around 700 cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed in Australia each year and the estimated annual health system expenditure for mesothelioma is more than $27 million annually."

Ms Ross said there was an estimated six million tonnes of legacy asbestos in Australia, affecting one in three households.

She said at the current rate of disposal, legacy asbestos is likely to remain in "significant amounts" until at least 2060.

ASEA is developing a national residential asbestos "heat map" they hope will help manage the problem.

"Once completed next year, it will allow governments to target awareness and removal programs where they are most needed, protecting home owners and tradespeople," Ms Ross said.

"It also means we can better target infrastructure and resources, such as waste disposal facilities, in areas that will need it most.

"We want to see Australians treat asbestos with the same caution as electricity.

"People working on homes built before 1990 can stay safe if they know where asbestos is, if they don't disturb or damage it, and if they seek professional help to locate, manage or remove it."

© AAP 2021

There are warnings of more to come from the severe storms that have hit parts of northern NSW, delivering damaging winds and more heavy rain to saturated catchments.

A low pressure system from the Northern Territory was on track to deepen as it collided with a southern cold front, with severe storm warnings for an area stretching from west of Bourke to east of Inverell, and south of Scone expanded to include coastal areas just north of Newcastle on Saturday evening.

On Saturday night those storms reached the coast at Grafton.

They brought damaging winds and large hailstones as well as heavy rainfall.

Twenty millimetres of rain fell in an hour south of Grafton and at Port Macquarie on Saturday night.

Crawney Mountain, south of Tamworth, received 19mm in an hour, while gusts of 105km/h were recorded at Moree airport on Saturday.

There are severe weather warnings in place across the state, with heavy rainfall expected to develop over the Central West Slopes and Plains, the Hunter and the Mid North Coast during Sunday.

NSW has already experienced wet weather for much of the month with floods threatening around the state.

The Bureau of Meteorology's Jane Golding said on Friday the landscape is already "quite sensitive" and floods remain a risk.

"We've seen quite a lot of rain over the last 18 months ... the catchments are saturated, quite a lot of dams are full and some of our rivers are still quite high," she said.

Minor to moderate flooding is predicted on the Belubula and Bell rivers at Orange and Molong, while minor flooding is also set to impact parts of the Upper Macintyre, Gwydir, Peel, Castlereagh and Macquarie rivers.

A moderate to major flood warning is still active for the Lachlan River as its height continues to drop slowly after peaking centimetres below the major flood level on Thursday.

Residents in Forbes in the state's central west were evacuated and farmers in the surrounding areas are counting the cost of lost crops.

Releases from Wyangala Dam are likely to keep river heights up in Forbes but rain forecast for Sunday is not expected to raise levels further.

Ms Golding said the bureau expects the forecast "to evolve quite a bit" as the system develops over the weekend.

"Where the rain falls and the storms develop will depend on which track that (system) takes through NSW," she said.

Meanwhile, two boys were rescued from a flood-affected river in Condobolin on Saturday afternoon.

Emergency services were called after two 11-year-old boys jumped into the Lachlan River, which the bureau has warned could reach a moderate flood level by next weekend.

They were swept 60 metres away by the fast-moving current, made worse by the flood water level, police said.

They were rescued by a police officer who swam out to them with a flotation device.

© AAP 2021

Image: Bureau of Meteorology