Thunderstorms, heavy rain and wild winds expected to lash Victoria

Residents across Victoria have been left without power as wild weather lashes parts of the state.

Residents across Victoria have been left without power as golf ball sized hail stones fell across parts of the state.

Parts of regional victoria remain in darkness, as 950 customers are without power.

A Powercor spokesman said “Powercor have restored power to thousands of customers in the west of the state, following a storm front crossing Victoria on Monday afternoon.”

“The largest outage at 8pm on Monday was around the Cohuna area in northern Victoria,” he said.

Powercor recorded outages throughout the afternoon at Koroit, Horsham and Nhill.

“As the storms continue to hit the area, we would encourage people to make sure they are prepared in case power outages do occur.”

In the last 12 hours the SES has received “74 calls for assistance, in relation to flooding and trees down in relation to storms”

Lightning strikes popping up across central #Victoria- the beginning of today's storm activity.⛈️
It felt like spring on the weekend, but we're shifting back to winter tomorrow!

Severe storms are possible later today; stay up to date with any warnings: https://t.co/og9AZWvsH0pic.twitter.com/Xupn6UvWBb

— Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@BOM_Vic) August 29, 2022

A SES spokesperson said State Emergency Services crews responded calls for assistance were in relation to flooding and trees down due to storms.”

“Emergency crews received 38 calls for help across Portland, Horsham and Mildura.”

The SES advise people travelling in dangerous conditions to plan their journey ahead of time and to adhere to advice of emergency services in the warning areas.

The cold front is expected to reach Melbourne on Monday night, but forecasters at the bureau of meteorology said activity will ease as it travels towards the city.

Chris Arvier, bureau of meteorology senior meteorologist said golf ball sized hail was recorded in Mildura, as the hardest hit areas were in Portland and in Victoria’s north-west.

Severe weather warning remains in place for western parts of the state, as wind gusts of up to 100km/h were recorded in Horsham.

“Flash flooding in Portland, and some of the heaviest rainfall Horsham, “ Mr Arvier said.

“The largest hail was in the Mildura and Wentworth area and hail of 2-5 centimeters in diameter was recorded.”

“We also had the largest hail Kaniva in western Victoria.”

Damaging winds as a severe weather warning is in place for residents in east, west and south Gippsland.

“There are other recorded thunderstorms ongoing out near Swan Hill and Bendigo,” Mr Arvier said.

“The area of storms has moved eastwards and is likely to reach the city a bit before midnight tonight.”

“The storm front is weakening as it heads towards the city and it will be a wet night for the city but not expected to see severe impacts

Austnet has been alerted to power outages affecting residents in Eltham.

“We are monitoring the situation and is localised,” a Austnet spokesperson said.

“If people see a fault or a line down to call the emergency number and to stay clear of power lines.”