It has been predicted for days, but Melbourne is finally getting a drenching on Tuesday.
The Bureau of Meteorology said heavy rain that hit the city around lunch time would continue throughout the afternoon.
“We’ve got a band of rain coming in from the state’s west and it’s already dropped a fair bit in western Victoria,” senior forecaster Stephen King said.
Mr King said 14 to 30 millimetres of rain could fall in Melbourne on Tuesday, with most of that to come within the space of about six hours.
Six millimetres had fallen in the city by 1pm, while 14 had fallen in Laverton and 13 in Altona.
Merino, in Victoria’s west, is the state’s wettest place having had 66 millimetres of rain on Tuesday, while 60 fell in Dartmoor and 50 in Warrnambool.
Ballarat has been pelted with 29 millimetres.
A severe weather warning has been issued for much of Victoria, with concerns heavy rain and thunderstorms could cause dangerous flash flooding.
The warning applies to the Northern Country, Central, North Central, North East and South West forecast districts.
The State Emergency Service had 66 requests for assistance since midnight, mostly for water damage to property, flooding and downed trees, a SES spokesman said.
Meanwhile paramedics have called on drivers to take care in the wet conditions after being called to five crashes across Melbourne in just 30 minutes this morning.
Northbound traffic ground to a halt on Hoddle Street in Collingwood when a car flipped onto its roof at the intersection with Johnston Street about 10am.
A man aged in his 30s was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital with minor injuries, an Ambulance Victoria spokesman said.
Another woman in her 30s was taken to the Alfred Hospital with minor injuries after a two-car smash in Albert Park.
“We’d urge people to adjust their driving to the conditions and leave some extra room between them and the car in front to avoid a collision,” Ambulance Victoria senior paramedic team manager Brendan Keane said.
The Western Highway has been closed after a B-double truck rolled, causing a crash involving a second truck.
One of the drivers suffered minor injuries in the collision, while the other was not injured.
Police said the Western Highway was expected to be closed between Nhill and Dimboola until the mid-afternoon.
Melbourne has been dodging rain for days and escaped a deluge of up to 70 millimetres that had been predicted to fall over the weekend.
Weather bureau forecaster, Dean Stewart, said an expected low pressure system had failed to eventuate, meaning rain did not move southwards across the state.
“We were still left with the very tropical air mass over eastern Australia and now that we’ve had this next trough of low pressure develop over South Australia and form into a low just off the coast that has actually resulted in the rain developing,” he said.
Mr Stewart said heavy rain had hit Victoria’s south-east, bringing relief to farmers who had experienced an unusually dry few months.
Rain is expected to persist in Melbourne for the rest of the week, before clearing at the weekend.
The weather bureau said there is a chance of thunderstorms on Tuesday afternoon and evening.
This story first appeared in The Age
