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Residents are cleaning up after wild winds, rain and hail lashed Sydney and parts of the New South Wales coast overnight.
The State Emergency Service (SES) received almost 1,000 calls for help as the storms hit, flooding roads, damaging homes and bringing down trees.
Passengers were stranded for several hours at Sydney Airport when ramp workers were forced off the tarmac due to the risk of lightning strikes.
SES spokeswoman Tanya Arginovski says the state's Central Coast and Sydney's northern suburbs were the worst affected areas.
"We've had in total 980 calls and 279 of them were from the metro area," she said.
"The type of calls were for leaking roofs, flooding and inundation of properties, roof and window damage.
"It's quite significant. The areas that were most affected were the Sydney northern suburbs, so around Wyong, Warringah, Pittwater, Gosford and Willoughby, Lane Cove."
She says calls for help started about 9.00pm AEST and escalated in volume very quickly.
"Probably about 10 calls every 10 minutes and then we saw a lot more around 11 and 12 o'clock," she said.
There was a severe thunder storm warning issued Sydney Metro, Illawarra and the Central Coast, where falls of up to 30 to 40 millimetres were recorded.
"SES crews will be quite busy going out and attending any jobs that they haven't overnight," Ms Arginovski said.
SES warns more storms to come
Ms Arginovski says residents "will probably see a lot more thunderstorms like we did last night".
"From what the radar can tell us...it will be the same conditions as of last night, but might include a little bit more areas," she said.
"So the Northern rivers, Clarence area."
People facing stormy weather are being urged to secure loose items around their properties, trim and tie-down tree branches and clear blocked guttering.
The SES says people should make sure roof damage is also taken care of.
Anyone requiring help can call SES on 132 5000.
Topics: storm-disaster, storm-event, emergency-planning, floods, weather, sydney-2000, sydney-airport-2020, newcastle-2300, nsw
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