Severe and widespread storms affected Melbourne and Victoria on Friday and will continue affecting parts of NSW over the weekend. 

A broad moisture laden trough triggered severe thunderstorms across the Melbourne area on Friday afternoon, leading to heavy rain and damaging wind gusts. A storm cell passing just to the west of Melbourne impacted Point Cook, which measured wind gusts of 150km/h and over 16mm of rain in 3 minutes, around 1:15pm yesterday afternoon. Heavy rainfall of nearly 19mm and 10mm was also measured in 10 minutes at Weribee and Tullamarine, respectively. Overall, over 85,000 lightning strikes were detected by the Weatherzone lightning detection system within 100km of Melbourne yesterday. Widespread and severe storms also extended over central and eastern Victoria, as well as into southern and central parts of New South Wales. 

The storm risk has contracted north today. A line of storms has already been active through the night and early morning, with storms stretching from the Bourke area, all the way to Sydney (see image below). Storms affected the metropole just after midnight with nearly 1700 lightning strikes recorded with 150km of Sydney in the 4 hours after midnight. In the 24 hours to 9am Saturday, Sydney Obs Hill has measured 29.6mm, with 29.0mm in Bankstown and 26.4mm in Richmond, with most of these amounts falling in the few hours around midnight. 

Elsewhere in New South Wales, nearly 100mm of rain was recorded in the hour to 6:15pm yesterday at Uralla, while Goulburn got 40mm in the hour to 6pm as well.  A 96km/h wind gust was also measured at Mudgee in the evening. The thick veil of cloud cover also lead to the coldest January day since 2008 for West Wyalong, with a maximum temperature of 22.5°C achieved. 

Image: Himawari-8 Satellite imagery just after midnight on Saturday showing a line of storms from the Upper Western region, all the way to Sydney, delivering heavy rainfall to parts of the state. 

The risk of thunderstorms will extend across the eastern half of state today. Areas east of a line between Bourke and Deniliquin will see the risk of thunderstorms (excluding the coastal fringe of the Mid North Coast and Northern Rivers). Severe storms will also be most likely over the central slopes, plains and tablelands, and extend into parts of the Illawarra, Sydney Metropolitain and Hunter regions. Dubbo, Parkes, Mudgee, Orange and Katoomba will all be at risk of seeing severe storms today. As seen through the afternoon yesterday and early morning today, these storms carry a high risk of heavy rainfall, but the risk of damaging winds and large hail is also present with severe thunderstorms cells that do form today. 

The Metropolitain region should see the risk of thunderstorms developing across the Blue Mountains and northwest in the afternoon, with the possibility of storms encroaching into the city. Severe storms are most likely to affect western suburbs, but will also be a risk closer to the coast. 

Tomorrow will see storms become more constrained to the north and northeast of the state, as a cooling southerly wind pushes up the south and central NSW coast. For the latest NSW warnings, visit here.