Six teenagers have been injured in Lake Eildon after a night of wild weather toppled a tree in their camp site north-east of Melbourne.
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The tree fell at about 10pm Wednesday night. The group suffered back and leg injuries as well as cuts and grazes, and were taken to hospitals around the state.
The injuries marked a night of wild weather that trashed the northern suburbs before a typical Melbourne cold front turned Wednesday's boiling temps into Thursday's freezing lows.
@sunriseon7 wide spread damage across #Melbourne with wind gusts in excess of 90km @7NewsMelbourne @RebeccaMaddern7 pic.twitter.com/aSCa3lSKCo— BillyFosterSunrise7 (@billyfoster15)
November 25, 2015
The collision of two big weather systems - extremely hot winds from the north and a big storm front from the south - gave Melbourne one of its most dramatic changes of late.
Wednesday reached a peak of 31 degrees and it was still sweltering at 9pm, before temperatures plunged to just 11 degrees by Thursday morning.
The fastest drop occurred as the cold front rolled over Melbourne between 9pm and 2am.
"It's basically gone from summer to winter overnight," Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Scott Williams said.
As the storm front moved in it brought strong winds and some rain. The winds were strongest in St Kilda and at Melbourne Airport, Mr Williams said, with gusts of up to 110km recorded at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay, and up to 90km over Melbourne.
The winds began to ease off at about 10pm, but have returned with a vengeance Thursday morning, making the day's top of 17 degrees feel closer to 12.
The SES had about 750 callouts, according to spokeswoman Sally Lowenstein, with most of them in Melbourne's northern suburbs. Box Hill and Northcote were among the worst-hit areas.
"Most of them were for trees down," she said.
"The rest were for minor building damage, and some less minor building damage ... There has been a couple of houses that were crushed by trees."
Most of the damage has now been cleared, with about 150 jobs still being worked on.
Ms Lowenstein urged people to take extra care on the roads on Thursday morning, particularly on less-travelled roads where trees may still be down.
