Wild storms and damaging winds have wreaked a trail of destruction across Victoria and left an estimated 500,000 people without power.
The Victoria State Emergency Service has received more than 2500 calls for help in the past 24 hours, with about 300 people reporting damage to their properties.
Power had been restored to some properties on Friday morning but about 450,000 households are still without electricity.
The energy market operator AEMO said the damage is severe and warned some customers will not have electricity this weekend or even by early next week.
It is the first weekend Victorians have been allowed to travel freely through the state, with many Melburnians planning to visit regional Victoria for the first time in months.
One of the hardest hit areas is Red Hill, a tourist spot on the popular Mornington Peninsula.
"I've never seen so many trees down, trees ripped out of the ground, there's just mess absolutely everywhere," a Red Hill resident told ABC radio.
NBN services are also offline in about 125,000 households, affecting thousands of people still working from home.
Senior Forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology Christie Johnson told AAP several locations recorded their strongest wind gusts in a decade or more, including Viewbank (104km/h), Hopetoun (83km/h) and Ben Nevis (117km/h).
In Bass Strait, Hogan Island clocked up wind gusts of 165 km/h, while parts of the Surf Coast recorded October wind speeds not seen in 20 years.
Ms Johnson said the damaging winds were caused by an intense low-pressure system moving across the state, with thunderstorms in the northwest developing at the same time as a storm system over Geelong.
The low-pressure system came with the lowest mean sea level pressure recorded in at least two decades, which resulted in unusually strong winds, she said.
Meanwhile sections of several metropolitan train lines are still suspended, and there are major delays on a number of V/Line services.
Several vaccination centres have been closed due to the storms, and there are reports VCE students have been unable to travel to their end-of-year exams.
Senior government minister Danny Pearson said while most schools were able to run VCE exams, a "small number" had to be postponed.
A severe weather warning for damaging winds is still current in Gippsland, parts of central and northeast Victoria, along with the Surf Coast and Geelong.
The winds are expected to ease later on Friday, passing across Melbourne and extending to Gippsland in the early afternoon.
The storm also caused widespread damage in South Australia, leaving more than 30,000 homes and businesses in Adelaide without power.
