Victorians are being told to brace for wild weather with heavy rainfall, hail and damaging winds expected to lash the state over the next few days.
Melburnians captured wild scenes on Tuesday as lightning struck the city overnight but the Bureau of Meteorology’s Morgan Pumpa said Wednesday was the day to “keep an eye on” for weather warnings.
“A trough will bring high temperatures with a top of 33 degrees tomorrow (Wednesday), as well as unsettled conditions including the chance of severe thunderstorms,” she said.
“There’s a chance of heavy rainfall, damaging winds and large hail. It’s looking like it will more so stretch from Colac to Daylesford and then across to Seymour.”
Ms Pumpa said thunderstorm activity was more likely to lash Victoria in the second half of the day.
Wednesday “is the day to watch, especially with elevated fire danger rating in the Mallee and Wimmera region,” she said.
“It’ll likely last all tomorrow then into some of Thursday, as well.”
The across Melbourne and Victoria, with health and emergency services “closely” monitoring the unfolding situation.
A high-risk forecast — the worst rating possible — was issued for the Central district, which includes greater Melbourne — and the west and south and Gippsland for today.
The alert, issued by Victoria’s chief health officer Dr Clare Looker, said the combination of “forecast high grass pollen levels” and strong winds meant “there is a chance that a large number of people may develop asthma symptoms over a short period of time”.
“Health and emergency services are monitoring the situation closely and are ready to respond,” it said.
The rest of Victoria was rated a moderate risk, meaning an epidemic thunderstorm asthma event was still possible.
Victorians with a history of asthma or hayfever were urged to avoid being outdoors during the storms — particularly during “the winds that precede them” — and ensure their asthma action plan is up to date.
Nurse on call and the virtual emergency department can help, but Victorians should call triple-0 “immediately if someone is not breathing, if their asthma suddenly becomes worse or is not improving, or if the person is having an asthma attack and a reliever puffer is not available”.
The warning is the latest in a series of alerts issued since the beginning of this year’s pollen season, and comes after a storm in early November saw emergency department presentations for asthma spike by more than 700 per cent.
At least 20 outbound and 10 inbound flights were cancelled on Tuesday morning.
Ms Pumpa said the fog would most likely linger until midmorning.
“Over the next couple of hours we should see a bit more clearing in regards to parts of the fog but otherwise it does depend on where you are,” she said.
“Some parts of Melbourne may see it linger a little bit longer but otherwise by the midmorning across Melbourne and Greater Melbourne we should see that fog clearing.”
It comes after passengers at Melbourne Airport faced flight delays of up to an hour due to thick fog blanketing the city.
The latest flight cancellations follow a “pretty ugly” day at Melbourne Airport on Monday where 105 domestic flights were cancelled, causing major disruptions.
“Yesterday was pretty ugly, all weather related, just that low clouded fog,” Melbourne Airport spokesman Andrew Lund said on Tuesday.
“All up we had 105 domestic flights cancelled across arrivals and departures and a few international flights cancelled as well.
“It was pretty messy and because the airlines are so full at the moment it caused a lot of trouble.”
The travel pain at Melbourne Airport came as fog caused a 20 car pileup on the Western Freeway on Monday.
The incident happened in Myrniong, near Bacchus Marsh, just before 4pm.
One person was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition.
