10,000 lightning strikes, 100km/hr winds smash Dubbo in severe thunderstorm

Meteorologist James Rout said more than 20 millimetres of rain was recorded at the official gauge at Dubbo in two hours on February 9, taking it from 1.4 millimetres at 5.37pm to 10 millimetres at 5.51pm and over 20 millimetres by 8pm.

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Some locals, however, reported more than 60 millimetres recorded in a short space of time during the storm while Sam Fitzgerald, the general manager at Dubbo Turf Club, said the track received somewhere between 70 and 80 millimetres.

"In about 14 minutes [from 5.37pm], about 8.5 millimetres of rain fell on Dubbo, which is fairly high. Then it was a steady accumulation of rain - that's at the Dubbo Airport weather station," Mr Rout said.

Wind gusts were intense, reaching 100 kilometres per hour between around 5.30pm and 5.40pm.

"This meets the criteria for a severe thunderstorm - that can knock over trees and cause some damage to buildings," Mr Rout said.

Soberingly, more than 10,000 lightning strikes were recorded within 10 kilometres of Dubbo from around 3pm and up until 8pm, with the most intense lightning strikes occurring around 5pm to 6pm.

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The number was higher the further you draw the radius, with a massive 100,000 lightning strikes recorded in the skies within a 50-kilometre radius of Dubbo.

A Facebook user posted a picture of hail raining down during the storm, and the Bureau of Meteorology had forecast hail could reach two centimetres in diameter.

Thursday's storm was part of widespread storms across the state, with others recorded in central, eastern and northern NSW.

Mr Rout said though the storm above Dubbo was "very severe", it did not meet the criteria for a supercell storm because it was not a "rotating storm".

"With the supercell you need the right kind of wind pattern - the winds need to rotate with height to get the supercell," he said.

"It looks like there were supercells further north, around Lightning Ridge, and it's possible that there were supercells passing, but by the time they were on Dubbo they'd all merged into a big multi storm cell."

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He said Dubbo experienced the fallout from multiple storm cells grouping together to form a cluster of storms.

These came mostly from the south-west, from Forbes, Parkes and Condobolin, and "merged together just before they reached Dubbo", according to Mr Rout.

Looking ahead on the radar, there is a chance of showers and storms on Tuesday, "but at this stage not likely as severe as this one", Mr Rout said.

Apart from that, he said Dubbo is in for some dry heat ahead, particularly around February 18 and 19, with low humidity for those days.