A heavy downpour in Melbourne has delayed flights and caused flash flooding.
The city centre had about 12mm rain fall in a very short time starting just before 3pm, and there was more in some suburbs, the Bureau of Meteorology says.
By 4.10 pm Melbourne Airport had received more than 40mm of rain on Thursday.
Flights were delayed when ground crews were called back inside just before 3pm as lighting passed overhead, an airport spokesman said.
The delays - whenever ground crews are recalled by heavy rain -could continue until conditions improve, the spokesman said.
In Melbourne online footage of the storm shows gutters at the popular shopping strip of Chapel Street covered by water, while diners along the street watch on.
In St Kilda some of the nature strips looked like small rivers.
"Some parts of Melbourne have had as much as 18mm in about 10 minutes," senior forecaster Dean Stewart told AAP.
Train lines have also been affected, with Metro saying there are major delays on the Frankston line.
The SES has seen a spike in calls from 3pm, with many people struggling with damage and flooding from the sudden downpour.
"Now the calls coming in are more for flooding, so mainly homes homes where roofs or gutters can't take the load," an SES spokeswoman told AAP.
People have also told 3AW radio that flash flooding has affected traffic on the streets of Carnegie and on an off ramp on the Westgate freeway.
The temperature had also dropped to 22.5C at 4.18pm from the day's high of 33.5C at 2.30pm.
It follows one of the hottest nights on record for Melbourne.
It dropped down to just 27C at 12.37am on Thursday, just short of the record 27.4C for December set in 2012.
Showers are set to continue for all of Victoria but will ease by Thursday.
On Wednesday wild winds caused power outages and hundreds of calls to the SES.
