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Severe storms pummel NSW with 400,000 lightning strikes in five hours

Thunderstorms stretching more than 800 km across NSW caused large hail and prolific lightning on Friday.

Warm and humid air interacting with an unstable atmosphere and a broad low pressure trough produced widespread and intense thunderstorm activity over NSW on Friday.

While a few storms were rumbling across NSW in the morning, the day’s heat was the key ingredient that caused the storms to spread out and intensify in the afternoon.

Image: A storm cell off Sydney’s Northern Beaches on Friday afternoon. Source: Felix Levesque.

At 3pm there were multiple storm cells building over central and northern NSW and by 6pm, storms were stretching more than 800 km from Sydney to the state’s northern inland. Storms also spread north of Sydney up through the Mid North Coast throughout Friday afternoon.

Around 400,000 lightning strikes were detected within a 500 km radius of Dubbo between 2pm and 7pm on Friday. Of these, around 70,000 were cloud-to-ground strikes and the rest were cloud-to-cloud strikes.

Image: Lightning strikes detected within a 500 km radius of Dubbo between 2pm and 7pm AEDT on Friday, October 17, 2025.

Friday’s storms also caused blustery winds, heavy rain and large hail, including 4cm hail at Stuart Town in the state’s Central West and 3 cm hail at Engadine in southern Sydney.

Severe thunderstorms will continue to affect parts of NSW and southern Qld on Friday night into Saturday. The focus of the most intense thunderstorms on Saturday will most likely be northeast NSW and southeast Qld.

Check the latest severe thunderstorm warnings for the most up to date information on this ongoing storm outbreak.