Victoria is mopping up after a wild 12 hours that delivered a month’s rain and caused flooding across the state.

It came as the weather bureau issued warnings for rain and storms in the next 48 hours across eastern NSW and south-eastern Queensland.

Showers, patchy rain, isolated thunderstorms, and gusty winds are expected across eastern NSW today, clearing tomorrow,” the Bureau of Meteorology tweeted in an update on Tuesday afternoon.

“Rain and thunderstorms developing for eastern NSW & south-east Queensland from Thursday.”

As Victoria was deluged overnight on Monday, one woman had a lucky escape after falling into a flooded stormwater drain.

The 58-year-old fell down an embankment and into the drain in the central Victorian town of Daylesford just before 9pm on Monday. Victoria Police said she was carried some distance by fast-flowing water until she managed to grab hold of a metal pole.

“She cried out for help but wasn’t heard over the roar of the water,” a police spokesperson said.

“Miraculously, the woman was able to fight against the force of the water and climb up the embankment to safety.”

She suffered minor cuts and bruises.

The SES said there were 267 reports of building damage and 117 flood-related incidents across the state in the 24 hours to 8am.

It came as Melbourne was hit by the equivalent of month of rain on Monday, with the city’s north-east copping the most.

Just outside the CBD, Olympic Park got 53 millimetres of rain in 24 hours. Upper Plenty, in Melbourne’s north-east, had 92 millimetres – its highest daily April rainfall total and well above the city’s average April rainfall of 50 millimetres.

SES duty officer Erin Mason said there had been at least four flood rescues. They included a man rescued from his car in a flooded street in West Melbourne.

“Mainly it’s been people driving through floodwater,” Mason said.

“Just a reminder to people to never drive through flood water. If the road is flooded, I encourage people to stop, turn around and find an alternate path.”

She expected the number of callouts to rise throughout Tuesday as the weather system headed east.

There was a severe weather warning for heavy rainfall and damaging wind gusts for much of Victoria’s east, stretching from parts of Melbourne down to southern Gippsland and the High Country.

Earlier on Tuesday, the alert extended across the NSW border to parts of the south-west slopes and Snowy Mountains, with damaging winds expected. That warning was later cancelled, although marine wind warnings remained active into the afternoon.

In Queensland, there are a string of active flood warnings for rivers across the state.

On Monday, lightning caused a 40-minute halt to the Geelong and Hawthorn AFL match at the MCG while the Stawell Gift finals were delayed by about two hours due to torrential rain and water over the track.

Lightning strikes also twice forced staff working on the tarmac at Melbourne Airport to move to a safe area.

Forecaster Weatherzone said it recorded “an incredible” 170,205 lightning strikes as the storm moved across Victoria.

-with AAP