Australia Weather News

Victorians are bracing for heavy rain and winds of up to 100 kilometres per hour as an intense low pressure system moves across the state from the west.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the system, which was bearing down on South Australia and bringing cyclonic winds, was expected to reach Victoria's north-west later today.

Severe weather warnings are in place for an area extending from Mildura to Portland, across to Wangaratta and including Melbourne.

Rainfalls of up to 50 millimetres were predicted for parts of the Mallee and Wimmera districts on Wednesday night.

State Emergency Controller Andrew Murton said the weather system could bring flash flooding, and people in affected areas needed to be careful.

"Obviously all our catchments are reasonably wet. Fifteen to 30 millimetres of rain could see some streams rise reasonably quickly," he said.

"We urge people not to drive through the floodwaters. It takes as little as 15 centimetres to potentially move a vehicle, so you just don't know what has been washed away in the road.

"It will get windy, certainly later this afternoon and over the evening through to Friday. There will be some pretty strong winds coming across this front as well."

SES hoping storm 'runs out of steam'

Mr Murton said Victoria was not likely to be hit as hard as South Australia, where residents in some areas were preparing for gale-force winds and up to 100 millimetres of rain.

"South Australia have obviously got a fair amount of rain out of this front but hopefully it runs out of steam as it his Victoria," he said.

A number of incident control centres have been set up across the state to deal with potential flooding.