21,000 without power as brief but strong thunderstorm tears across Sydney
Emergency crews worked through the night to restore power to more than 40,000 homes affected by the wild weather, with about 750 remaining without power on Friday morning.
Power has been restored to thousands of homes in Sydney after severe storms lashed NSW’s east coast.
Emergency crews worked through the night to restore power to more than 40,000 homes affected by the wild weather, with about 750 remaining without power on Friday morning, Endeavour Energy said in a statement.
The energy provider will be contacting customers with home medical equipment to check on their welfare while restoration works continue.
The storm front moved across parts of Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong early on Thursday evening, bringing with it strong gusts and heavy rain. During the storms, more than 40mm of rain fell in 30 minutes in Auburn in Sydney’s west.
The NSW SES received a total of 675 calls for help in the Wagga Wagga, Albury, Orange and Wollondilly areas.
They also had to rescue seven people from flooded cars in Albury and Sydney. The wild weather is set to continue for parts of the state on Friday, with further severe thunderstorms likely.
A severe weather warning is in place for the South Coast and around the Snowy Mountains, as well as several flood watches in areas including Bega and Towamba.
The storm was also responsible for bringing down trees, leaving drivers stranded in floodwaters and prompting almost 700 calls for help.
It wasn’t quite the super storm that lashed the city last month but residents were battening down the hatches last night as the storm cell tore across the city.
The storm, which roared across the region yesterday afternoon, delivered up to 40mm of rain in 30 minutes in Auburn in Sydney’s west.
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Southwestern Sydney was the hardest hit, mainly in Wollindilly and Campbelltown.
There were several flood rescues with drivers having to be saved from their cars in Fairfield and Menai.
In Camperdown a large tree was uprooted and crashed down on several cars and properties causing a blackout in the surrounding area. No one was injured.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning with heavy rainfall, damaging winds and large hailstones forecast across northern NSW and the central west.
Wind gusts of up to 107km/h were recorded at Coonamble in the central-western plains while winds reached 105km/h in Narrabri in the state’s north west slopes, the bureau said.
Storms which lashed parts of Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong earlier in the evening had eased by about 9.15pm prompting the cancellation of a severe thunderstorm warning, the bureau said.
Up to 20 millimetres of rain is forecast to fall in Sydney again today.
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