The city has been lashed by heavy wind and rain, with the cell hitting town just before 6pm.

Shoppers at Southcity report being evacuated from the centre and some have described the storm hitting "like a tornado" in Ashmont.

Wagga's southern suburbs lost electricity, with Essential Energy listing an outage for almost 6000 customers at 6pm.

A total of 5962 premises south of Urana Street in Glenfield Park, Tolland, Mount Austin, Lloyd, Bourkelands and right back through Springvale to past Dunns Road were left in the dark.

In other news

Power is believed to have been restored to those customers within the hour.

Another 762 customers in parts of Wagga's Central, north of Forsyth Street, also lost power a few minutes prior to the southern blackout.

Downed powerlines in Central has cut electricity to another 900 customers from Slocum Street across to Wagga Base Hospital and from West Parade to Jackson Street.

A further 1600 homes and businesses bounded by Wagga, Brookdale, French Park and south of Pulletop were also affected.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning at 6.09pm, with predictions of damaging winds and heavy rainfall through the night.

Wagga, West Wyalong, Narrandera, Holbrook, Lockhart and Darlington Point are all expected to be affected.

"Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce damaging winds and heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding in the warning area over the next several hours," the warning said.

More to come