Thousands of Sydney homes have had a night without power after a severe storm and damaging winds ripped through the city, bringing trees crashing down on power lines, houses and cars.

And it’s likely those residents hit by the blackout in Mount Druitt, Castle Hill and Parramatta will remain without electricity until Thursday afternoon with crews scrambling to clean-up and repair the damage caused by Wednesday afternoon’s storm.

Western Sydney and the Hills District were the worst hit with lightning and strong winds cutting power to 33,000 properties at the peak of the storm on Wednesday.

By the evening, power was restored to around 19,000 properties but just over 13,000 were still without electricity and warned the blackout would continue through the night.

Endeavour Energy was calling customers with registered life support equipment to check on their welfare.

In Sydney’s north 800 homes in Berowra, 1300 in the Central Coast suburbs of Woy Woy and 400 in Saratoga were without power on Wednesday evening.

Those residents were expected to have had their electricity restored by midnight, an Ausgrid spokeswoman told AAP.

Trains and flights were delayed, while commuters heading home experienced traffic chaos after trees fell onto power lines.

But there will not be a reprieve on Thursday, with Sydney set to cop more showers, most likely in the morning and evening. There is also a chance of a thunderstorm in the early morning.

Meanwhile, Victoria could potentially face 72 days of power blackouts in the coming two years following the closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired power plant.

Figures from the Australian Energy Market Operator, obtained by Fairfax Media, show the state’s energy security will become increasingly “fragile”.

To avoid outages, the shortfall will likely be made up from power supplies from NSW and Tasmania.