Severe storm cuts electricity to Goulburn district homes

Lightning and strong winds, gusting up to 89km/h at Goulburn airport and up to 60km/h in the city, hit at about 8.30pm. It created spectacular scenes and had photographers out snapping.

Goulburn Airport registered almost 8mm of rain across five hours, while the city's TAFE gauge recorded 6mm.

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An Essential Energy spokeswoman said the network sustained significant damage and power was cut to 14,000 customers across the Southern Tablelands, Riverina and Far-West NSW. Power poles were destroyed and trees fell across electricity lines.

Gunning-Fish River FRS brigade photographed a large tower toppled over at Yass.

In this area, 228 households and businesses in a large area from around Biala over to Tuena were left without electricity. Parts of Gunning, over to Yass, Currawang, Collector and Bungonia were also among the towns affected.

Essential Energy crews from across the state were dispatched immediately to repair the electricity network.

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"Crews worked throughout the night in challenging conditions to restore power to approximately 5,000 customers," the spokeswoman said.

But 9000 people remained without electricity on Sunday morning.

The spokeswoman said power restoration was a top priority and crews were working as quickly and safely as possible to repair the network.

Goulburn SES controller Daryl Skinner said his crews attended three call-outs on Saturday night, mainly to felled trees.

On Sunday, they attended to eight call-outs, including trees down over fences and backyards. Four incidents were referred to Goulburn Mulwaree Council, given they were on its land.

Mr Skinner said the entire unit was on stand-by for any further jobs on Sunday.

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At 11am, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a warning for "vigorous winds" across the Southern Ranges.

Damaging winds, averaging 60 to 70 km/h with peak gusts in excess of 90 km/h are likely for parts of the Snowy Mountains, Southern Tablelands, ACT, Illawarra and Central Tablelands and South Coast.

Areas above 1500 metres are likely to experience damaging to locally destructive winds, averaging 80 to 90 km/h with peak gusts in excess of 125 km/h. These will be confined to Alpine areas above 1900m on Sunday evening

Locations which may be affected include Perisher Valley, Charlotte Pass, Thredbo, Cooma, Braidwood and Goulburn.

The storms come after last week's heavy rainfall which created moderate flooding in Goulburn and surrounds.

Goulburn Tafe has recorded 81.4mm for December and the airport - 89.2mm, Bureau data showed.

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