"Sydney hasn't quite seen its strongest winds yet," Mr Duke said, just before noon. "I suspect we'll have another couple of hours of these gusts." Fun in the snow as local children stay home from school and play in the Biggest snow fall in around 40 yrs as locals wake to a winter wounderland in Oberon NSW this morning . Credit:Brendan Esposito However, as for rain, "the worst of it is more or less through", he said. Temperatures will continue to feel like "single digits" even though breaks in the clouds will lift the maximum towards 14 degrees. The storms, associated with a cold front that has spawned an east coast low, prompted the Bureau of Meteorology to reissue a severe weather warning on Friday morning for damaging winds. It cancelled a warning for damaging surf.

"A trough linked to the deepening low off the Illawarra coast is expected to trigger damaging winds ... for central parts of NSW coast," the bureau said. Winds strongest near the coast as the east coast low drifts eastwards. Credit:Earth.nullschool.net Winds are likely to reach gusts of 90km/h for coastal parts of the Metropolitan, Hunter, including the Central Coast, and Illawarra forecast districts. "It will be very coastal, whatever we get," Mick Logan, a senior forecaster with the bureau, said. Oberon residents are waking to a winter wonderland on Friday morning after the NSW central tablelands town had its biggest snowfall in about 40 years. Credit:Brendan Esposito

East coast low to exit Mr Duke said the east coast low is fairly stationary but "should start to move briskly eastwards in the afternoon" away from the coast. The strongest winds along the coast include 100km/h at Wottamolla, to Sydney's south, which was recorded just after 11am. In Sydney's metro region, the strongest winds included 69km/h at Kurnell about the same time. The east coast low - also known as an east coast cyclone - that is driving the wild conditions formed a little further off the coast than earlier forecast.

Such lows tend to be intense and are the result of a cold upper air mass combining with moist unstable air off the coast. The impact in terms of rain and wind damage depends on where the low forms and whether it lingers or moves away quickly. "It will still be wet and windy, but the further away [the low is from the coast] the better," Mr Logan said. It has been cold, with a top temperature of 14.3 degrees so far for Sydney.The mercury dipped to 6.2 degrees in the city and 4.8 degrees at Terrey Hills in Sydney's north. Snowmobiles handy

In the meantime, motorists trying to travel along major highways in the state's east have had a hard time of it in many places - while the Mt Panorma circuit near Bathurst wasn't the place to take a drive either: In an update posted to Twitter, Live Traffic NSW said the main motorway between Sydney and Melbourne is now fully open: There is also some relatively good news for those trying to get between Orange and Bathurst, and also in New England.

Other roads were still closed as of earlier afternoon:

.People in affected areas are being advised to delay travel where possible, and to take care when driving on icy roads. Ski resorts The ski resorts in NSW have had another good dump of snow, with Thredbo reporting 30 centimetres and Perisher 15 centimetres, according to the Ski.com.au website. The set-up brought lighter falls to Victorian resorts, with Falls Creek reporting three centimetres and Mount Buller just one centimetre. See the bureau chart of the snowfall forecasts as of this morning:

Snow, meanwhile, also fell in Stanthorpe in southern Queensland, the first falls there since 1984, according to Blair Trewin, senior climatologist with the Bureau of Meteorology. For those growing weary of the cold, the official start to summer is only 137 days away. Loading On current forecasts, Sydney should also receive a run of relatively mild and sunny days from Tuesday to Thursday next week, with tops of 19 degrees. Weatherzone is owned by Fairfax Media, publisher of this website.