Updated ,first published
A wild storm that whipped Sydney has downed trees and prompted hundreds of calls for assistance, with further extreme weather expected to follow on Friday.
The NSW SES responded to 370 incidents around the state, beginning at 3pm on Thursday, with 215 in Sydney.
SES intelligence and warning officer David Pedersen said about a quarter of those calls came from around the city’s northern beaches and were mostly for downed trees, with no reports of flooding.
More than 1300 Ausgrid customers remained without power on Friday morning after the storm knocked out electricity, primarily on the northern beaches and Central Coast.
About 35mm of rain fell in 30 minutes at Campbelltown in Sydney’s south-west as the clouds rolled in on Thursday afternoon.
The storm drenched Four Pines Park at Brookvale and knocked out power ahead of the round four NRL match between the Manly Sea Eagles and Sydney Roosters, but the match went ahead when conditions cleared.
Chaos on public transport followed as commuters faced major delays on metro and train services from the storm that hit during peak hour.
Services have mostly returned to normal on Friday morning.
Severe winds kicked up a dust storm and partially collapsed a crane on a building site in Dubbo on Thursday afternoon.
Damaging surf, large powerful seas and gale force winds are expected along Sydney’s coastline, stretching north to the Mid North Coast and south to Victoria.
“The weather event which is driving those severe storms is going to continue into Friday,” the Bureau of Meteorology’s Angus Hines said.
“Even though that initial band of wet weather … will move offshore, we’re not done with what’s going on.”
Winds could reach up to 110km/h in parts of NSW.
“That’s really, really strong wind, enough to bring down some trees and cause some damage to property,” Hines said.
Rockfishers, boaters and swimmers are also warned to avoid the hazardous surf, which is expected to continue into the weekend along the coast.
Swells could reach five metres along Sydney’s coast on Friday afternoon, with southerly swells potentially getting as high as 10 metres on Saturday.
NSW Police urged people planning on hitting the water to “reconsider it”, warning of high risk due to the unpredictable swells.
“While NSW Police Force have high-performance resources, including police boats, police divers, PolAir and specialist rescue officers, severe weather will highly likely limit our ability to conduct search and rescue in some instances,” he said.
Waves whipped up on Thursday, and surfers took to Cape Solander, off Kurnell in Sydney’s south, where videographer Jye Zap captured the “heavy slabs”.
A chill has set in amid the wild weather, and temperatures are expected to be below average for March in much of the state.
Sydney is heading for a top of 21 degrees, with a low of 13, but the apparent temperature is considerably lower.
“Possible blizzard conditions” in alpine parts of the state’s south are also possible on Friday morning but are expected to ease into the weekend as the vigorous low-pressure system driving the wild weather moves offshore.
It was snowing in the Central West on Friday morning.
“We’ve got a bit of snow falling at the moment, intermixed with the rain, but it’s unusual to see, in beautiful Orange, snow this early in the year,” caller Jeff told 2GB said on Friday morning.
Temperatures in Orange were just above freezing on Friday morning, but the apparent – or “feels like” – temperature plunged as low as minus 6.6 degrees.
Snow was also falling at Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains, but temperature data was not available from the BOM.
Meanwhile, a total fire ban is in place in the north of the state in the New England and Northern Slopes regions amid high to extreme fire danger.
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Jack Gramenz is a breaking news reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
