Storms struck Sydney this afternoon and with some very heavy rain fall and some areas getting 2-3cm hail.  James was out chasing this arvo and should have somethings to report soon, stay tuned!!!

I don't know if you are like me, but a day like today is when you start looking westward for some relief from the sticky weather.

I love the long humid days of late summer and early autumn, but its nice when a storm rolls through in the late afternoon to cool things off.

Today was one of those teasing days where the storms burst to life mid afternoon, and those people in Sydney could see the explosive cloud formations over the Blue Mountains, and later see the tops of the storms come stream through, blocking out the afternoon sun.

However some days the storms just stick to the mountains - like yesterday and today.

Above is a great pic of one of those explosive storms from the last few days, courtesy of our friends at blackheathweather.com

After a quiet month, the last week has seen a return to storms around Sydney. Western Sydney copped another brutal storm than brought down trees and powerlines, leaving over 15000 people without power. This is the second big storm in a month to hit this area, after the hailstorm that left vast swathes of damage across areas from Penrith, Blacktown and Castle Hill. On the 20th storms swept across the basin. Matt was in position at Rooty Hill to capture the storms below, while the image above was sent to us from Andrew Johnson, who captured this epic landscape as the storms were moving offshore at Kurnell point.

More images here in Matt's 2008 gallery.

Although I managed to miss last Sunday's storms across Sydney I am happy to advise I was back home today to witness my first storm for 2008, and a good one at that.

I met Dann at his place and headed out towards Lithgow hoping to catch the earlier action over the Central Tablelands before heading back into the Sydney basin late afternoon for what we were both anticipating should be big. The earlier storms were terrible to be honest .. I was expecting a little more structure at the start but the combination of no wind shear, moist uppers and no cap meant that things got cluttered very quickly with no structure on show. After a quick u-turn we were heading back to the Bells and watched as the first large storm developed in front of us.