Storm cell picks up sheds, tears off section of roofs in Alfredton, Ballarat – ABC News

A wave of wild weather crossing Victoria, in the form of a trough that brought thunderstorms and substantial rainfall, damaged roofs and brought down fences and trees across Ballarat and some other parts of western Victoria.

The regional city's State Emergency Service (SES) unit was the second-busiest in the state as units responded to 402 jobs in 24 hours.

Ballarat SES controller Gordon Hicks said a "very focused weather event" affected a few streets in Alfredton, a suburb of Ballarat.

"We had a house that lost a few tiles off the roof, we also had another house that lost a fair proportion of its metal roof," he said.

"There were some smaller sheds in backyards that were picked up and moved around and parts of air conditioners on roofs that came off the roof and ended up in backyards of other properties.

"So there were quite a few properties affected by this weather event."

He said Ballarat saw similar damage from localised storms six or seven times each year.

"Ballarat get these fairly regularly, we're no stranger to these weather events," Mr Hicks said.

"These are very focused weather cells."

Deputy controller Olivia Lorkin said the period stretching from mid-morning Sunday through to Monday had been one of the busiest, and wettest, for the year.

"We've seen some particular storm cells in the Alfredton area, we've also seen some jobs out in Miners Rest, Creswick and also out in Warrenheip as well," she said.

"We've been out in isolated areas that have been most impacted by the storm cells and the rain and some of the flash flooding that's happened."

A resident of Canopy Street in the Ballarat suburb of Alfredton, Angela, said her neighbours described seeing a lightning strike hit one house this morning.

"About 5.30 [we heard] a massive gust of wind we described it like a truck just revving and revving out the front of our house, something I've never heard before," she said.

"It was over probably in about 60 seconds, maybe 2 minutes, it was really quick and really short.

"People have lost roofs off their houses, other houses completely lost their fences."

Bureau of Meteorology data shows more than 40mm of rain fell in Ballarat in the 24-hour time period to 9am this morning.

The Ballarat data from the city's aerodrome recorded a wind gust of 57 kilometres per hour late Sunday afternoon and gusts up to 35kph this morning.

During that time 30mm was recorded at Warrnambool, 28.4mm was recorded at Mortlake and 11mm at Ararat.

A supermarket in Ballarat East had to be evacuated late Sunday afternoon after water started leaking through the roof.

Meanwhile the Bacchus Marsh SES unit assisted with a rescue of an injured hiker at Lerderderg Gorge on Sunday afternoon just before the rain hit.

The team helped winch the hiker to safety before hiking through the pouring rain to respond to six more calls for help in the town for building damage and flooding.

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Storm cell picks up sheds, tears off section of roofs in Alfredton, Ballarat - ABC News