Daniel Hayes, senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, was just on ABC Radio Melbourne, where he confirmed the storms that hit Melbourne this afternoon are largely clearing.
Emergency warnings remain in place for people in the south-east – including Koo Wee Rup, Lang Lang, Pakenham and Gembrook – to shelter indoors.
Making a splash on Johnston Street, near Hoddle Street. Eddie Jim
“We have seen a few places that have been coming close to that one millimetre per minute,” Hayes said. “There is the potential that we could see some quite significant flash-flooding risk as those thunderstorms continue to move through the areas.”
Gisborne received 32 millimetres of rain in one hour, while in Melbourne’s outer north, Konagaderra received 22 millimetres in half an hour.
Hayes stressed that people shouldn’t drive unless they have to, and should stay away from floodwaters.
Hayes was followed by Powercor’s Emma Tyner, who said the electricity distributor was working to restore power to 4400 customers as of 4pm.
“A few of the larger outages include Port Melbourne, impacting about 2041 customers,” she told radio station 774.
“We’ve still got one around the Thornbury area impacting about 1085 customers, and Northcote 765 customers.”