Dust, heat and fire emergencies – but no relief in sight for weary Victorians

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Victorians have endured a scorching day, with bushfire alarms, dust storms and poor air quality across the state – and the weather bureau warns there is more to come.

“It has been a stinker across most of Victoria,” Bureau of Meteorology state manager Andrew Tupper said late on Friday afternoon, after many towns recorded temperatures in the mid-40s.

But, rather than the cool change many across the state might be expecting, extremely humid air and heavy rain will roll in within hours.

“It will be more than uncomfortable. It will be quite difficult for some,” Mr Tupper said.

The change will bring windy conditions – as well as potential flash flooding and the likelihood of more of the muddy rain that fell in Victoria earlier in January.

“The odds are if we get severe storms tomorrow, there will be hail,” Mr Tupper said.

“Most likely the hail will be less than five centimetres, which is still a pretty decent size, but it’s less likely that we’ll see the giant hail that was observed in some places.

“Please still keep an eye out just in case we get some particularly severe storms develop – with heavy rain also comes flash flooding.”

In South Australia, where the change came earlier, electricity was cut to almost 10,000 properties as thunderstorms and rain moved across the Eyre Peninsula. The Royal Adelaide Hospital was operating on generator power and had abandoned elective surgery after its electricity was cut on Thursday afternoon.

The Bureau of Meteorology said up to 100 millimetres of rain might fall in South Australia, with wind gusts up to 90km/h.

VicEmergency had already issued warnings of “moderate to very poor air quality” in Melbourne and the state’s west due to dust and wind.

“A dust storm is travelling south-east across the entire state from South Australia. The dust storm reached the Mallee and Wimmera earlier today [Friday].

“The dust storm will reach the central district in the late afternoon.”

Much of the state remained under total fire bans on Friday afternoon. There was an emergency warning for an out-of-control fire at Scarsdale, in central Victoria, south of Ballarat, but it was quickly brought under control.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesman at the Orbost incident control centre, told the ABC more than 100 Victorian firefighters were working on a fire at Bendoc and Bendoc Upper, near the Victorian-NSW border.

“There’s a lot of heavy smoke in the air,” he said.

“That may reduce our ability to have any air operations over the fire.”