 The east coast low in May 1974, the June 2007 Hunter Region and Central Coast storms and April 2015 are extreme examples of this type of weather.The metropolitan area of Newcastle is the second most populous area in New South Wales, and includes most of the Newcastle LGA, a large portion of the Lake Macquarie LGA and parts of Fern Bay, a southern suburb of Port Stephens Council.At the 2016 census it had a population of 322,278.