The wild weather over the Canberra region has eased but the Bureau of Meteorology's severe thunderstorm warning remained in place by Friday evening
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Canberra dodged the majority of bad weather forecast to hit it on Friday, despite damaging winds and large hail still being a possibility overnight.
By 6:30pm on Friday, only 1.8 millimetres of rain had hit Canberra since 9am; with the capital seeing over 60 millimetres in the 48 hours before.
Bureau meteorologist Byron Doyle saying Saturday could see more storms and about 10 millimetres of rain.
"There is potential for them to be severe [the storms]," Mr Doyle said.
The capital received 51.4 millimetres of rain on Thursday - just over a millimetre shy of the average monthly rainfall for December.
The ACT Emergency Services Agency had responded to 262 calls for assistance since Thursday morning, with the majority for fallen trees and the rest consisting of leaking roofs and minor flooding. Crews were still working on about 20 of those requests at about 7pm on Friday.
The agency's incident controller, Nathan Henderson-Smith, said the "luck of the Gods" had prevented widespread damage to property's across the territory during the storm on Friday.
However, there had been some pockets of major damage, including to a 100-metre section of roof near Kambah Pool.
A number of trees had also been uprooted in Yarralumla.
Mr Henderson-Smith said crews were expected to be kept busy on Friday night, as the storm rolled through the capital.
"We are asking the public to remain vigilant and we ask that parents and families, particularly with the start of school holidays, to keep children away from fallen trees, power lines and storm drains," Mr Henderson-Smith said.
"We will see more volumes of water [around the city]."
A strong wind warning was in place for the parts of the NSW South Coast around Bateman's Bay, with heavy rainfall expected before conditions eased on Sunday.
Weather in the capital was still expected to ease on Sunday with mostly sunny conditions.
South of Canberra, the Snowy Mountains were still expecting to see rain and strong winds before conditions improved slightly to mostly cloudy weather.
Amid the wild weather, emergency services are reminding Canberrans to;
- Keep away from trees and fallen powerlines
- Not walk, ride or drive through flood water
- Turn headlights on when driving, and;
- Drive to the conditions
Much of Australia's East Coast had battled wild weather for the last few days.
Domestic airlines have cancelled or delayed 30 flights from Sydney Airport as stormy weather continues across the NSW coast.
A severe weather warning remains in place for parts of the South Coast and Snowy Mountains on Friday, and flood watches in areas including Bega and Towamba.
Another eight to 20mm of rain is forecast to fall in Sydney on Friday, with a top of 27 degrees predicted.
Meantime, Queensland's far north is preparing ahead of the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Owen, but that's taking longer than expected, leaving residents with a nervous wait.
Owen has been tracking over the Gulf of Carpenteria for the past few days, reintensifying on Thursday into a category 3 with authorities predicting it could reach category 4 overnight into Friday.
Owen was expected to head back towards the Queensland coast by Friday but that had not yet happened.
"The U-turn has taken a little bit slower and is a little bit further to the coast than we were expecting yesterday," the Bureau of Meteorology's Laura Boekel said.
"Systems in this area are notoriously erratic and move quite quickly and the situation can move quite quickly as well."
Victorians are also being told to watch for more flooding as the state gets deluged with record rains.
With Ben Weir, Laura Chung and AAP
