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Storms lash Victoria

ABC

ABC

Wild weather has wreaked havoc on central Victoria with high winds and heavy rain causing widespread damage.

Roofs have been ripped off houses, trees have crashed to the ground and trampolines have flown out of backyards.

Gippsland, Wyndham Vale, Hoppers Crossing and Werribee have been hardest hit with homes battered by strong winds. The State Emergency Service received more than 520 calls for help between midnight and midday on Friday, with 100 calls from across Gippsland and 73 from the Wyndham region.

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A number of trees were down across a number of suburbs, causing chaos on the roads, including the Strzelecki Highway and the Maroondah Highway, east of Melbourne.

A severe thunderstorm warning has been revoked but a severe weather warning for damaging winds and heavy rainfall remains in place for Victoria’s central, northeast and eastern regions, including the state capital.

Much of Melbourne recorded more than 12 millimetres since midnight, while Strathbogie in the state’s northeast drenched by 44mm of rain in nine hours.

Aspendale resident Andrea Perry said her family of four was woken by “an almighty bang” as her neighbour’s roof was dumped onto her home in Melbourne’s southeast.

“The neighbour’s house next door, they are renovating, and the whole roof has completely landed on our house including all of our cars, boat and my husband’s work truck,” she told 3AW on Friday.

“It kind of felt like the world was ending in that moment.”

The extreme weather also caused trouble for Friday morning commuters. The Sandringham line was suspended between Elsternwick and South Yarra after a tree fell across the tracks, while the Sunbury, Lilydale and Craigiburn lines experienced severe delays and cancellations.

The ambulance service was called to four collisions in five minutes around 8:30am.

Tony Bannister, a senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, said the state was divided in two: warm northerlies in the east and cool westerly winds in the western part of Victoria.

“We’ve got a big rain band over the eastern half of the state and that’s in the northerlies and those winds in the northerlies are really quite strong, especially at elevated areas,” he said.

High winds have accompanied the change with one wind gust of 96 kilometres per hour recorded at Falconer Beacon in Port Phillip Bay.

Gale warnings were issued for the lower south east coast of South Australia, and for the Eden Coast in New South Wales.

-with ABC and AAP

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