Cars were flipped and roofs torn off houses after a wild tornado smashed through the NSW city of Armidale on Thursday night as wild weather hit the southern states.

The NSW SES received 111 calls for help in Armidale as residents were trapped in their homes when the random weather event tore through the Northern Tablelands city about 10pm.

A #tornado has impacted areas near #Armidale this evening with reports of cars flipped over, trees uplifted and residents trapped in their homes. @NSWSES and @nswpolice attending

📸: Louise Streeting pic.twitter.com/UedG6uDHrK

— NSW Incident Alerts (@nswincidents) October 14, 2021

Earlier in the afternoon, fast-moving storms pummelled greater Sydney, dumping golf-ball sized hail and buckets of rain across the city and making a ceiling collapse in the Westfield shopping centre at Mount Druitt.

Across the state, the SES responded to more than 450 calls for assistance.

It wasn’t just NSW in the firing line as the north-west Victorian town of Pira, near Swan Hill, was blanketed in hailstones that looked like snow. It came after a storm warning was issued for that part of Victoria, alerting locals to potential flash flooding.

No, that's not snow on the ground in Pira near Swan Hill❄️

Richard from our VFF team snapped this shot of hail earlier today as severe storms continue to cross parts of Victoria.

Stay safe out there✅#vicfarmers #vicweather pic.twitter.com/d2i8haQPii

— Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) (@VicFarmers) October 14, 2021

On Thursday afternoon, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a tornado warning for Sydney as the “really dangerous” storm passed over the metropolis.

Golf ball-sized hail. Photo: Twitter

The storms were most intense over Sydney and the Lower Hunter, but hail was reported from Sydney to Cowra in NSW’s central west.

Those stones mostly between three and five centimetres, but some were even larger.

The conditions over western Sydney were particularly serious, with meteorologists seeing all the ingredients for a “very, very dangerous supercell”, said the Bureau of Meteorology’s Gabrielle Woodhouse.

Ms Woodhouse said the storm was “really dangerous”.

Crazy weather in Sydney hail with tornodo 🌪️#Australia #SydneyStorm #sydneyweather #Sydneythunderstorm #Tornado #globalwarming #Naturaldisaster #Floods #lighting #storm #Weather #WeatherForecast #Climatecrisis #climatechange pic.twitter.com/kKcjZRu5AA

— Exo (@weather17_) October 14, 2021

Some 33 millimetres of rain fell at Woodville Golf Course at Canterbury in about 15 minutes.

By Thursday night, the most dangerous storm had passed out to sea.

Early-morning thunderstorms deposited up to 30 millimetres on parts of Canberra.

-with AAP