Three women, all sisters aged in their 60s, have been hit by lightning in Bowral in the New South Wales Southern Highlands.
The women were sitting together on a bench in Corbett Gardens, a park just off Bowral's main street, when they were struck by lightning on Saturday afternoon.
Two of the women have been treated for shock while the third, 61, was hospitalised for major injuries.
She has been airlifted to a Sydney hospital to be treated for severe burns, police said.
The incident occurred during the amassing of storms in eastern NSW on Saturday afternoon.
Bowral was hit with a severe storm cell at about 3pm on Saturday. The storm moved in a south-easterly direction towards Kiama.
The Bureau of Meteorology reported golf-sized hailstones in the area.
The unstable weather conditions stretched to Sydney, with severe thunderstorms hitting Sydney's northern suburbs on Saturday afternoon.
"There have been really strong steering winds pushing the storm in, quit deep easterly winds have stretch it out all the way to the coast in some form," Jordan Notara of the Bureau of Meteorology said.
"Although we haven't seen reports of large hailstones on Sydney's coastal fringe."