Sydney awoke to a frigid Saturday morning, with temperatures dipping to a brisk 7.3 degrees in the CBD at 7:15am.

Tired of the rain? Get used to it - as four grey and wet days settle in over the city.

Moderate global warming that has occurred as a result of human emissions has quadrupled the frequency of certain heat extremes since the Industrial Revolution, study finds.

Freezing Sunday rain and winds saw Mothers Day picnics cancelled in the capital, while light snow dusted the mountains earlier in the morning.

Parts of Sydney are copping the odd isolated thunderstorm on Monday afternoon, but the storms are unlikely to reach the severity of the weekend's tempest.

The trail of destruction left behind suggests the supercell storm that struck Forbes Creek south of Bungendore on Saturday was a tornado, on the same night Canberra had its highest daily rainfall for the month.

Still plenty of winter left to get a winning picture in for your chance to win a prizes in the photo competition.

A broad and unpredictable trough stretching across south-east Australia could inundate Canberra with a month's worth of rain this weekend.

It seemed to sneak up on us, this storm that washed away houses and swept away lives, that devoured beaches and turned suburban railway lines into rivers.

On a sunny Friday morning grower David McIntyre packed his walnuts and set out from the tiny Victorian town of Stanley to plead with beer giant Asahi to stop buying the water from beneath him.

Stacy Smith's family were forced to quit their new beachside home after mould rotted the carpet of one of the children's bedrooms and infiltrated the walls and ceiling, resulting in dangerously high levels of mycotoxins.

Sydney commuters are in for an easier run home as the worst of the wintry weather dissipates for the day - and probably the rest of the month.

Even Sydney's burst of early spring warmth couldn't escape the odd quirky political link.

Meteorologists predicted the southerly buster would hit the city from about 5am on Wednesday, and that's precisely when it swept over Sydney Airport.

As of 9am on Friday, Melbourne was the hottest capital city in Australia. And that's not about to change.