Thousands of Victorians have suffered power outages on Thursday night, as a storm front sweeps across the state's south, leaving flash flooding and large hailstones in its wake.
In the 24 hours to 9pm, the State Emergency Service (SES) responded to around 300 calls for help.
Many of those were from Geelong, Corio, and Melbourne's northern suburbs.
More than 5,000 customers were without power late on Thursday night.
Earlier in the day, the threat of lightning strikes forced Melbourne Airport to pause ground operations, causing delays to some inbound and outbound flights.
About 40 millimetres of rain fell within 20 minutes at the airport before 5:30pm, causing significant water leaks in some of the terminals.
"Baggage couldn't be loaded and passengers were kept on planes just to make sure everyone stayed safe," Melbourne Airport spokesperson Andrew Lund said.
"That's resulted in delays to arrivals and some departures as well, and there'll be some residual delays throughout the afternoon and the evening as the airlines recover from that."
Drivers urged to avoid floodwaters
Hailstones up to three centimetres in diameter were reported in Geelong as the storm passed through.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the storms would likely affect large parts of the state across Thursday evening, including Bendigo, Shepparton, Seymour, Ballarat, Geelong, Melbourne, Traralgon and Bairnsdale.
The SES's Aaron White urged Victorians in the path of the storms to take shelter when required and avoid fallen powerlines, trees and branches.
"We remind the community not to drive anywhere near floodwater and try and keep away from it as best they can, as it only takes 15 centimetres for a small car to float," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
