Some 60,000 homes were left without power and several people injured after a ferocious storm ripped through parts of the country overnight.
The wild winds tore through Sydney and Newcastle on Saturday evening bringing down trees and powerlines and sending a boat sail flying through the air.
Sydney CBD recorded gusts of up to 50km/h, Sydney Airport saw 92km/h while Nobby’s Beach in Newcastle recorded 70km/h and Moss Vale reached 106/km/h.
A number of people suffered minor injuries after the wind tore through the SailGP event at Sydney’s Barangaroo.
Dramatic footage captured the moment a sail was torn from a Canadian boat and sent flying into the air and crashing into temporary marquees set up for the race.
The SailGP event at Sydney’s Barangaroo has been called off on Sunday after the wild winds ripped though the fleet on Saturday evening, sending a Canadian sail into marquees (pictured)
The quick but ferocious storm ripped through Sydney on Saturday evening (pictured)
A trampoline picked up and blown onto the footpath in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire (pictured)
Power provider Ausgrid confirmed 30,000 of its customers were left without electricity in Sydney, Newcastle and parts of the Central Coast.
Endeavour Energy said 33,000 of their customers in western Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Illawarra were impacted.
Both companies said they were working through the night and on Sunday to restore power.
In Sydney a number of traffic lights were also knocked out and a major tunnel connecting the city to western Sydney was shut down for four hours due to a power disruption.
Fire and Rescue NSW said it had a number of callouts on Saturday night for fallen trees, downed power lines and elevator failures.
NSW SES said it received 277 calls for assistance from across the state.
A number of Sydney train services were also halted due to fallen trees but were back up and running by late Saturday night.
Cleanup is now underway with Ausgrid saying 20,000 homes remained without power early on Sunday morning.
There wasn’t torrential rain with the storm but there was some spectacular lightning (pictured: Narabeen)
Ausgrid said fallen trees had knocked out power to some homes, with about 20,000 houses without electricity early on Sunday morning (pictured: Ausgrid crew in Sydney on Saturday)
Day two of the Sydney SailGP is cancelled following the major weather event, with the Canadian F50 catamaran suffering catastrophic damage.
The condition of the remaining eight boats in the fleet in unknown.
SailGP released a statement on Saturday evening in which they said a full assessment of the damage was underway, but as far as was known no-one was seriously injured during the incident.
Australia is at the top of the SailGP standings, though the statement said it was likely some of the future SailGP events may need to be delayed.
There are two more of the 11 rounds remaining, Christchurch on March 18-19 and San Francisco in May, when the top three boats will face off for the title following the fleet races.
All three of Saturday’s scheduled races were completed before the storm hit with France winning on each occasion.
Organisers confirmed late on Saturday that three races were sufficient to constitute an event and for points to be allocated even with Sundays races cancelled.
Despite the wild weekend the rest of this week is looking mild for most of the country.
Sydney will reach maximums of 30C and 29C early in the week with a possible storm Tuesday evening.
But the city will cool by Wednesday with scattered showers possible, particularly on Wednesday during the day.
Melbourne is looking cool earlier in the week and will warm slightly by Wednesday reaching 31C – though will likely avoid the rain.
Saturday’s storm cell viewed from Seaforth looking over Sydney (pictured)
Throughout this week most of the rain will be centred on the northern tip of the country, but Wednesday could see some showers, particularly on the NSW central coast
Brisbane could get showers through the week with the mercury staying around maximums of 30C.
Adelaide is in for a bout of hot weather – reaching 35C by Monday and approaching heatwave temperatures by Wednesday of 39C.
Over on the west coast Perth will be sunny with highs of 34C on Sunday and Monday but will cool to 29C by Tuesday.
Up north the wet season is in full swing with Darwin sitting at highs in the low 30s and showers everyday through the week.
While Tasmania is in for a cool week with a high of just 19C on Tuesday.
