Tens of thousands of Victorian homes remain without power after severe weather lashed parts of the state on Monday.
Parts of Victoria recorded wind gusts of 146 kilometres per hour on Monday, with the State Emergency Service (SES) receiving 4,300 calls for help since Sunday night.
The SES said more than 1,100 of those calls were for building damage and 2,800 for fallen trees, with the Frankston unit receiving the most requests for help.
Two properties — one in the Dandenong Ranges and one in Corio, north of Geelong — have been deemed uninhabitable, according to the SES.
Power outages peaked at 180,000 on Monday morning, and as of 5:30pm, about 80,000 homes were still disconnected.
SES State Agency Commander Alistair Drayton told ABC Radio Melbourne that while damaging winds would continue into Monday afternoon, they were expected to ease across most of the state in the evening.
A 63-year-old woman died as a result of the wild weather after a tree fell on a cabin in Moama on the Victoria-New South Wales border.
Her husband, also 63, was treated by paramedics for injuries to his hand and was taken to Echuca Hospital for further treatment.
Police said the couple was from Inverleigh, west of Geelong, and that an arborist had recently been to the caravan park.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan expressed her condolences to the woman's family and loved ones.
"This is obviously a very sad and tragic set of circ*mstances for that woman's family and my thoughts and sympathy go to her and also the emergency services who responded to that incident," she said.
Damage to buildings across the state
Emergency Management Commissioner Rick Nugent said some homes had been left uninhabitable after Monday's storm.
"We don't know exactly how many because impact assessments need to be undertaken," he said.
Mr Nugent said teams were already conducting those assessments but that the priority was getting power reconnected and making properties safe.
At Toora, in South Gippsland, severe winds caused damage to the town's historic pub.
Royal Standard Hotel manager Grant McMillan said part of the pub's roof had blown off, and a lot of heritage brickwork had been destroyed.
"The winds were pretty heavy all night, it was very scary," he said.
In Armadale, bricks fell from the roof of 8days cafe during the storm, with owner Ross Green saying he was relieved no-one was walking underneath at the time.
"It's a bit of a mess to clean up unfortunately," he told the ABC.
Mordialloc resident James said he heard a "god-awful" snap at 2:30am on Monday and found a large tree at the front of his home had fallen on the driveway of his south-east Melbourne home.
He said it was lucky the tree did not fall in the other direction or it could have hit the front bedrooms where his children were sleeping.
"It's a large tree so our houses are pretty close to it so yeah, we've been kind of worried about this tree for a while," he said.
Victorian power outages could take days to restore
Emma Tyner from United Energy said the damage to power lines and infrastructure could take days to repair.
"This won't be a one-day event unfortunately," she said.
"As the day progresses and our crews continue to go out and assess damage, we'll have a better understanding of how long this will take us."
Ms Tyner urged people to stay well clear of any fallen lines.
"Immediately just assume it's a power line and call us directly but otherwise if you don't have our number call emergency services," she said.
Ms Allan said there were no plans yet to offer emergency payments to people affected by the weather system but that the government was monitoring damage assessments.
"Mercifully the impacts are not as bad as we saw earlier this year in February or indeed in that period of June in 2021 but it is still widespread, there is a lot of damage and as we work through that recovery and response we'll have a better understanding of the ongoing impacts," she said.
The Department of Transport urged motorists to drive with extreme caution due to fallen trees and power light outages.
In Melbourne, some rail lines were suspended or delayed due to powerline and infrastructure damage.
Ms Allan said two government schools — St Helena Secondary College in Eltham and Yarra Ranges Special Developmental School — had closed for the day, while several private schools requested students learn from home.
Wild weather will ease later on Monday, BOM says
The BOM's senior forecaster Rod Dickson said the worst of the winds was probably over, and conditions were expected to ease late Monday afternoon and evening.
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He said waves had reached 8 metres along the far south-west coast, and higher-than-normal tides were forecast for the Victorian coast and Port Phillip which could inundate low-lying areas.
"These strong westerly winds are really preventing the water from moving out of the bay so we do see that water stack up with the high tides," he said.
He said the high tide along East Gippsland was a particular area of concern.
A Watch and Act alert remained in place at 5:30pm on Monday for dangerous surf conditions and storm surges along the south-west coast.
Authorities said beach conditions, particularly around Warrnambool and Portland, could be dangerous, including strong ocean currents, dangerous waves, unstable cliffs and flooding in low-lying areas.
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Mr Nugent said dangerous surf and high tides would continue to pose a risk around the Victorian coast.
South-east of Melbourne, the huge storm surges caused drastic erosion along the coast in the tourist town of Inverloch.
The SES said it had received almost 7,000 calls for severe weather over the past seven days from Monday, making it the service's busiest week for requests for assistance since 2021.
The BOM has revealed this week's storms coincided with Victoria recording its warmest winter on record and second warmest August on record.
