Australia Weather News

High winds cause damage in the Snowy Mountains. - ABC

Wild weather in parts of New South Wales and the ACT has prompted hundreds of calls for help and several flood rescues overnight, the State Emergency Service says.

Many of the calls came from in and around Dubbo, Orange and Bathurst in the NSW central west where there has been flash flooding, trees brought down and a roof damaged.

There had been 80 calls for help across Canberra due to wind gusts and heavy rain over the past 24 hours. Most of the calls were related to roof leaks and fallen trees.

In NSW, emergency services have received about 550 calls for help since Friday night, mainly for trees down and roof damage in the Southern Highlands and Blue Mountains.

At Charlotte's Pass, three ski lodges were damaged by high winds.

Police Inspector Mike Murphy said drivers need to avoid taking risks and allow extra time for travel in the state's Alpine region.

Strong winds continuing to affect NSW, ACT

SES spokesman Andrew Richards said they would be keeping an eye on strong winds predicted for parts of NSW.

"We're keeping an eye on some areas — not so much Sydney, but some of those higher areas in and around Sydney, even up into the north towards the Hunter Valley this morning," he said.

"We've seen some fairly heavy rain in the Snowies region with Perisher experiencing up to 126 millimetres.

"It's going to be a pretty miserable day if you're going to be going skiing and those sorts of things, so it may be better off bunkering down inside and avoiding any fallen trees and the like."

Mr Richards said several flood rescues have been carried out over the past 24 hours.

"We've seen around eight flood rescue activations in and around some of those areas affected by flooding in the central west region," he said.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) predicted damaging winds, with peak gusts of up to 90 kilometres per hour for the south-east of the state, but has now cancelled the warning.

Gusts of up to 100 kilometres per hour were expected across the ranges.

A warning for damaging winds of up to 90 kilometres per hour remains in place for areas to the north and south of Sydney.

Bad weather is also affecting other parts of Australia, as a cold front crosses central Victoria.

A severe weather warning was issued, with wind gusts of up to 125 kilometres per hour possible in alpine areas. Meanwhile, a severe weather warning was cancelled in South Australia after wild weather swept the area on Friday afternoon.

ABC