The camera gear was all packed away for the winter, capturing video of the 2007/08 season had begun, however the big guy upstairs had other plans.

Severe storms developed over the southwest of Sydney during the afternoon and proceeded to move north throughout the afternoon evening. The structure from north of Sydney was nothing short of spectaculur - towering crisp updrafts lit up by a setting autumn sun made for some great photo's.

More photos can be found here 

Just when we were all thinking Sydney's storm season was at an end, along comes a nice short wave trough and a southerly to kick off one last round.

Storms formed late in the morning over the Tablelands before some large bases emerged over the Hornsby area in the warm humid conditions. The southerly seemed to hit this line around 1pm and the storms really took off in size and structure.

Unfortunately yours truly was participating in a soccer game so could not get any photos until half time. By this time the line had developed well and truly to the north of Sydney towards Gosford. Photo is from Hornsby Heights looking towards the Gosford cell. Note the nice lean to the cumulus towers indicating good vertical wind shear.

Headed up the mountains and watched a severe storm dump an amazing amount of rain and hail around Bilpin this afternoon. A number of cells kept back building over the area until a larger dominant cell developed overhead and pushed the storm across to the Central Coast early evening. Hail Drifts up to half a foot, flash flooding and some larger hail stones up to 3cm punded the region for around 30 minutes starting just after 3pm.

More images here 

Over 40,000 people lost power today as severe storms swept through Sydney. The storms formed due to a combination of an upper trough passing overhead with a surface Southerly change moving up the coast. With ample moisture still in the air, it didn't take long before severe storm warnings were put out by the BOM for flash flooding across Sydney, Illawarra and the Hunter. More reports and photos by clicking 'read more' below.