More rain ahead after 73,700 lightning strikes, 100mm of rain left one dead in NSW

NSW is set to see more showers for the remainder of the week after a storm carrying thousands of lightning strikes and more than 100mm of rain caused destruction and left one man dead overnight.

A man died in the state’s Central West, 143,000 people are without power and downed trees are blocking roads this morning – mostly across Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.

Weatherzone said 73,700 lightning strikes hit within 100km of the CBD and 8777 strikes reached the ground as four storms barrelled towards the coast last night, dumping heavy rain and spinning up damaging winds after producing hail further west.

The Bureau of Meteorology forecasts showers and a thunderstorm in Sydney today.

Locally heavy rain, flash flooding, hail and damaging winds are expected to continue this afternoon.

Swimmers and surfers are urged to be cautious as up to 60km/h winds create large and powerful surf conditions.

Since 9am this morning, Norah Head has seen the most rainfall with about 12mm, followed by Gosford with 9mm and Lake Macquarie with 8.6mm.

Severe thunderstorms are set to combine with a low-pressure weather system that is expected to bring locally significant rain from today through to Sunday.

Widespread rain of 30mm to 80mm is expected, with some localised higher totals between 100mm to 200mm of rain possible. Tomorrow is estimated to be the peak day for rain.

A flood watch has been issued with minor flooding possible for the: Orara, Coffs Coast, Bellinger and Kalang River Catchments, Manning and Gloucester, Myall River, Karuah River, Wollombi Brook and Lower Hunter, Paterson and Williams Rivers.

SES respond to 1800 callouts

In an update this morning, the SES said they had received 2250 calls and responded to more than 1800 incidents in the last 24 hours.

The majority of the incidents were related to fallen trees, powerlines and damaged properties.

The Sydney metro area was the worst-affected, with 679 callouts, followed by Hornsby and Karinga.

In Carlingford, 14 people were left desperately finding a place to stay for the night after a roof ripped off a property.

A large tree fell, impacting a hospital in St Leonards. In Castle Hill, a person was rescued after being trapped in a car from a fallen tree.

In the 24 hours to 9am today, 127mm of rainfall hit Eurobodalla, 102mm lashed Barlows Bay and 70mm fell over Beaumont.

More than 143,000 customers were without power across the Hunter, northern Sydney, broader Wollongong area and more rural areas.

About 9pm, Ausgrid said 62,000 customers were without power and blamed roughly 90 per cent of the outages on lightning. That number later jumped to 120,000.

“Due to the extent of the damage and the widespread nature of this event, the majority of customers impacted are likely to be out until tomorrow at the earliest,” Ausgrid said last night.

Endeavour Energy said it had called in additional crews to restore 52,000 outages. That number had dropped below 40,000 by 4am.

Essential Energy, which is responsible for most of the state outside of Sydney and its surrounds, said wind, rain and hail started to provoke outages about 1.30pm.

More than 29,000 were without power about 7pm, with Bathurst, Coonabarabran, Wagga Wagga, Orange and Cowra among the hardest hit.

Driver killed by falling tree

As the storms made there way across the Central West, powerful winds caused damage and one man died.

Police said the driver, believed to be in his 80s, died after a tree fell on his car on Lachlan Valley Way, Cowra.

Officers called to the scene about 3.50pm found the man dead when they arrived.

The town was one of several to cop wind gusts in excess of 100km/h, along with Scone, Tamworth, Dubbo, and Sydney airport. One gust topped 120km/h in Williamtown.

Several towns including Mandurama, Araluen and Perisher Valley copped about 30 millimetres of rain in half an hour.

Another four people were injured when demountable camping huts flipped in strong winds at Bomen in Wagga Wagga about 2.35pm, according to the SES.

Source Credit: 9 News Sydney