Three people are dead and one is missing following a weekend of cold and blustery weather in Victoria and Tasmania.
A man and a young boy died when a tree fell on their car at Sherbrooke, north of Melbourne, at 5.30pm on Sunday.
Fallen trees were the cause of most of the 274 calls for assistance to the Victorian State Emergency Service in the past 24 hours. Forty calls also reported building damage caused by hail and strong winds.
Police on Monday found a body believed to be that of missing student Poshik Sharma, who was last seen leaving a pub in Marysville four days ago.
Sharma, a 21-year-old Indian national from Werribee, had been in Marysville with friends and was last seen leaving the Duck Inn at 4.30pm on Thursday.
The body was discovered in Marysville at 11am on Monday. Police said the death was not suspicious.
Meanwhile police in Tasmania were searching for a Victorian man who was hiking in freezing conditions in the wilderness of the central highlands.
The family of Michael Bowman raised the alarm when the 57-year-old failed to report in to the Lake St Clair visitor centre on Saturday. Bowman had more than 30 years’ bushwalking experience and was carrying an emergency beacon, which has not been activated.
Temperatures in the area for the past three days had been hovering around zero, with heavy snowfall.
Police and SES crews were due to begin a ground search on Monday, weather permitting.
Both Tasmania and Victoria have experienced their coldest days of the month so far.
The maximum temperature in Hobart on Sunday was just 8C, with 9C on Friday and Saturday and snow down to 500m. Cradle Mountain recorded 30cm of snow overnight on Friday.
You can never be too prepared for #snow 30+ Cm of snow overnight and still going strong #cradlemountain #tasmania pic.twitter.com/0Y6PnqgKfh
— ToddRoberts (@toddroberts) July 12, 2019
In Melbourne it reached 12C on Saturday, with 14C on Sunday. But winter in both states was slightly warmer than average.
The long-term average daily maximum in Hobart for July is just 11.7C, and bureau of meteorology forecaster Matthew Thomas said Tasmania usually experienced two or three very cold weekends a season.
“That’s winter in Tasmania – the joys of it,” he said.
Both Hobart and Melbourne are forecast to return to warmer climes of 14C for the rest of the week.
