On Friday night (December 14), strong winds, hail and rain battered inland parts of the Hastings with trees bringing down power lines at Wauchope and Beechwood.

More than 1100 homes were left without power.

Mt George, inland from Taree, recorded 41mm of rain in just one hour.

Strong winds persisted into Saturday (December 15) with the Mid North Coast from Kempsey southward on high alert from the Bureau of Meteorology for intense storm activity, damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rain.

To the south, a woman received serious injuries after a tree branch fell on a car during a storm on Friday night.

A 49-year-old woman was a passenger in a Nissan Murano being driven on Blackhead Road, Hallidays Point near Forster, when a large branch fell on the car and penetrated the windscreen.

The woman received serious internal injuries and was extracted from the vehicle by emergency services.

A Toyota Yaris also received damage from the tree. The driver was uninjured.

She was taken to Manning Base Hospital where she is in intensive care.

The strong winds have also whipped up a dust haze over the central inland parts of NSW. There is a chance that the dust will continue to get blown east across the ranges and reach the coastal parts of the state on Sunday, according to the State Emergency Service.

There is a risk of supercell thunderstorms developing, particularly about the ranges, eastern slopes and coastal hinterland. Supercells are prolific producers of severe weather, including giant hailstones, torrential rainfall and locally destructive winds.