THURSDAY UPDATE:
The NSW State Emergence Service has finalised the majority of calls for help in the St George and Sutherland Shire following Tuesday night's severe storms.
The SES were called to more than 2265 requests for assistance across the state including 637 in the local area.
The majority of these have been completed with only 41 requests to be finalised in the St George and Sutherland Shire.
They are expected to be completed by the end of the day (Thursday).
Ausgrid also had electricity returned to all affected homes by Wednesday night.
All affected roads have also re-opened.
WEDNESDAY:
An epic storm raged across Sydney on Tuesday night, trapping dozens on a train, closing major roads, causing some flights out of Sydney Airport to be cancelled and bringing snow to the Blue Mountains.
Bureau of Meteorology forecast office manager Andrew Treloar said Sydney saw some "extraordinary" wind speeds on Tuesday night with gusts reaching 161 km/h at Wattamolla.
Ausgrid reports this morning that power is still out in parts of Engadine and Kurnell and a small number of homes in Woolooware and Cronulla.
Repair work at Kurnell will be extensive after a power pole snapped in half.
Sydney trains report that all services on the T4 Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra line are running on or close to time this morning.
Flood waters and fallen trees closed a number of roads overnight but most have re-opened to traffic including at Audley Weir between Audley Road and Sir Bertram Stevens Drive in the Royal National Park.
Sutherland Shire Council and emergency crews are helping residents and businesses clean up after last night's wild weather and flash flooding.
Sutherland Shire Mayor Kent Johns praised SES volunteers who have been working since Monday night's storms and council crews responding to callouts.
"The Sutherland Shire SES will work tirelessly for the next few days to clean up and repair the damage, and in particular assist people with fallen trees.
"Sutherland Shire Council crews found one damaged building and attended a plumbing issue and minor roof leaks. A full assessment of council's properties and open spaces will be conducted throughout the day.
''The surf conditions and rivers are dangerous so people are being warned to stay out of the water. Council playing fields are also closed due to the wet weather," said Cr Johns.
For life threatening emergencies contact 000.
Call the SES hotline on 13 25 00 for storms and flood assistance.
Harrow Road, Bexley remains closed after overhead power lines were brought down. Emergency services were called to the scene at 8am and are still at work there.
There are also extensive delays on Botany Road at Botany Bay with high winds restricting access to Port Botany Freight Terminal.
Emergency service workers were called to a Bundeena home after its roof collapsed this morning.
NSW Fire and Rescue crews are at the two-bedroom Beachcomber Avenue home which has significant damage to the roof and back of the house.
It was unoccupied at the time and is believed to be recently sold.
The storm also caused some damage at Hurstville.
A council spokeswoman said that due to flooding, the local studies collection and some public computers were currently inaccessible and the tennis courts at Vanessa Street, Beverly Hills suffered extensive damage.
Kogarah Council had nothing to report.
St George and Sutherland SES have urged people to be careful on the roads today after Tuesday night's storm and floods.
An SES spokesman said they were called out to 11 rescues last night for people who drove into flood waters.
"Ninety-nine per cent of calls for assistance were from people driving into flooded areas. People are advised to avoid driving and walking in flooded areas," the spokesman said on Wednesday.
SES workers were called to 143 jobs, mainly for flood damage and fallen trees and power lines.
Police, NSW Fire & Rescue and SES went to Burraneer at 11.15pm after a large tree fell on Burraneer Bay Road, closing both lanes. It was cleared at 2am.
Six people were evacuated from a building at Allawah after a retaining wall collapsed. They are in temporary residents accommodation with the help of the Welfare Services Functional Area.
At 11pm, 60 passengers had to be rescued from a train stuck between Kingsgrove and Bexley North, according to the SES.
About 50 people were still trapped on the train at midnight with emergency services having difficulty reaching them through the floods. They were freed some time later.
A lightning bolt struck the Sydney Tower about 10pm, creating a shower of sparks and plunging the structure into darkness.
Ultimo resident Tom Lane said it was "like someone was welding".
"It was one of the biggest bolts of lightning I have ever seen. It was absolutely massive. The whole tower went black," Mr Lane said.
Almost a year to the day since bushfires wiped out more than 200 homes in the area, snow blanketed the Blue Mountains. Snow and ice forced the closure of the Great Western Highway between Bathurst and Blackheath overnight. This morning the road remains closed between Lithgow and Katoomba, while the Bells Line of Road remains shut between Lithgow and Bell.
The severe thunderstorm warning was cancelled at 12.27am for Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong. The severe weather warning for damaging to destructive winds, heavy rainfall and damaging surf remained in place for the metropolitan area.
Winds are expected to ease this morning, but rainfall will remain steady until this afternoon.
Bureau of Meteorology forecast office manager Andrew Treloar said Sydney saw some "extraordinary" wind speeds on Tuesday night with gusts reaching 161 km/h in Wattamolla.
"This has been a significant event for Sydney," Mr Treloar said.
The wind gusts were strongest along the coast with Kurnell and Bellambi experiencing wind gusts over 100 km/h.
"Today we've seen conditions start to ease since around midnight," said Weatherzone meterologist Josh Fisher on Tuesday morning. "In terms of the winds around, we're still seeing gusts as high as 102km/h at the airport about 3am, but now they have begun to gradually back off and we'll continue to see the winds ease off this morning."
Sydney's CBD received 68mm of rain, which now makes it Sydney's wettest October in five years. Sydney Airport received 98mm and had wind gusts as high as 106km/h.
Since 9am on Tuesday, Sans Souci has received 141mm of rain, its highest rainfall in 23 years, while Canterbury has had 121mm since 9am on Tuesday.
"The low pressure system has been generating these severe conditions overnight. The main area of low pressure has begun to move north east, with winds easing off," Mr Fisher said.
"There were also reports of flash flooding particularly through southern suburbs of Sydney where there was a persistent heavy bend of rain pushing in last night. That's where we saw the target for the heaviest rainfall."
NSW Fire and Rescue responded to more than 190 weather-related emergencies, including 85 reports of flooding, between 6pm and 10pm.
With gusts of up to 106km/h, there were ongoing dramas at Sydney Airport. About 18 domestic and several international flights were delayed or diverted as the storm descended.
The airport closed at 11pm due to its curfew, but several airlines had applied for special permission from the NSW government to operate past the curfew.
Expected flight times depended on the weather and individual airlines, a spokeswoman said.
The NSW State Emergency Service had responded to more than 600 calls for help by midnight and the calls were still coming in steadily, spokesman Phil Campbell said.
The SES had to rescue 40 people from their cars, most of whom had been trapped by flood water.
By 4am, the SES tweeted that "the number of requests for emergency assistance has reached 1230, with 57 of these flood rescues".
NSW Fire and Rescue spokesman Superintendent Paul Johnstone said due to the sheer volume of calls for help, extra fire crews from the Illawarra region had been called in and fire engines from the training college were being used.
"The majority of the calls have been for floodings, trees down, wires down and recently we've had a house fire at Normanhurst caused by a lightning strike," Superintendent Johnstone said.
And by midnight, the calls still weren't slowing down.
"Our volume of calls is pretty consistent. There's been no major jobs requiring coordinated resources. They've just been constant all through the night," he said
A two-storey house in Kellyville was also set alight at 10pm after a lightning strike started a fire. There was also a house fire in Guildford just before midnight.
Roads across the city were closed and more than 11,000 homes across the city lost power.
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