On Friday afternoon a low pressure trough crossed eastern New South Wales, bringing heavy rain, damaging wind and large hail. A thick line of lightning stretched all the way from the state's South Coast into southern Queensland during yesterday afternoon. These storms and some early rain on Saturday morning brought widespread totals of over 50mm from Sydney up to the Mid North Coast. For some locations, such as Woolbrook in the North West Slopes and Plains, it was the highest total in a year. The storms brought bursts of heavy rain, with 16mm falling in just 10 minutes at Nobbys Head and 12mm in the same amount of time in Campbelltown. Rain wasn't the only feature, with numerous reports of large hail, including Mount Victoria and around Orange. Damaging wind gusts also swept through the state's east as storms rolled through. In the Hunter, Murrurundi Gap withstood a gust of 102km/h. The wind and rain brought rapid temperature drops, with Tamworth plummeting 8 degrees in just 14 minutes as a storm passed overhead. Storms generally lost their intensity as they entered the Sydney Basin, with only 200 lightning strikes recorded. It was a very different story in the North West Slopes and Plains though. Within 200km of Gunnedah there were over 32 000 lighting strikes generated by the storms. The trough has now moved off the NSW coast and has taken much of the storm activity with it. A low pressure system is developing off the Hunter coast and is continuing to send rain and gusty southerly winds ashore. Rain will be heaviest in and north of the Hunter, clearing from the south during the day.