From 7.30pm until midnight on Tuesday, 17,652 lightning strikes were recorded within 40 kilometres of Bathurst by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

Of those, 2507 lightning bolts hit the ground.

"That's certainly a lot of strikes, it moved through pretty quickly," Weatherzone meteorologist Tom Hough said.

READ MORE: Your photos of the wild storm that hit the Central West

A severe weather warning was issued on Tuesday evening with wind gusts of up to 87km/h recorded at Bathurst Airport.

During the storm 12.2 millimetres of rain was recorded between 8.59pm and 11pm.

Lighting is a major concern for firefighters during the drought with each bolt that hits the ground able to quickly ignite a new blaze.

NSW Rural Fire Service Chifley/Lithgow zone operational officer Brett Taylor said just one new fire was ignited.

"There was a lightning strike in the Rydal area, a tree was alight," he said.

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The recently extinguished Gospers Mountain bushfire near Lithgow was also ignited by a lightning strike and it ended up becoming the world's largest forest fire from a single ignition point.

It destroyed homes, burnt 512,626 hectares and took firefighters 79 days to bring under control.

Mr Taylor said bushland areas may be smouldering following the lightning strikes and he urged the community to report any unattended fires to triple-0 immediately.

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