Thursday brought a wild array of weather to the Hunter as high temperatures, excessive lightning and even hail hit the region.
A wild storm came in during the evening after the mercury climbed past 30C in parts of the Hunter during the day.
There were more than 43,000 lightning strikes within a 50 kilometre radius of Newcastle overnight, according to Weatherzone, most of which occurred between 6pm and 10pm.
More than 1220 of those hit the ground.
A severe weather warning was issued for damaging winds and large hailstones, which has since been cancelled.
Hunter Weather posted an image to social media supplied by Debbie Selden of decent sized hail that fell at Mulbring during the night.
The wild weather could continue again on Friday with a top of 31C predicted for Newcastle and a chance of a thunderstorm, possibly severe, during the afternoon.
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