SES crews were faced with 160 active jobs by 6.30pm and worked through the night until 4am, clearing downed powerlines and snapped trees.

Thousands of Ballarat residents were plunged into darkness when power was cut to homes for hours on end, with Canadian and Mount Clear the hardest hit.

Other suburbs said to have been affected include: Ballarat Central, Mount Helen, Sebastopol, Mount Pleasant, Ballarat East, Golden Point and Wendouree.

PowerCor confirmed storm damage was responsible for the blackouts, with almost 8000 homes in the region still without power on Monday morning.

Strong winds as high as 80km/h snapped trees like match sticks, causing severe damage to cars, houses and fencing.

SES crews teamed up with council arborists and DELWP workers to start the big clean-up, which is expected to take a few days.

City of Ballarat director of infrastructure and environment Terry Demeo said the sheer power of the wind alone was enough to knock down large trees given the soil was relatively dry.

"We will now go through and assess trees for what we call 'hangers', to see if any limbs are weakened and present a risk," he said.

"The clean-up will last well into the remainder of the week."

The Bureau of Meteorology had originally expected April to be drier than average in Ballarat but our city has already received more rain than the monthly average over the weekend.

Up to 57mm of rain had fallen by Monday evening – easily topping the April average of 50.8mm.

Emergency Management Commissioner Craig Lapsley​ fronted reporters in Melbourne and pinpointed Ballarat as one of the hardest hit locations in the state.

Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Kevin Parkyn said Durdidwarrah, near Melton, had two months of rainfall in just 24 hours.

“We’re fortunate that the landscape’s fairly dry,” he said.

“Where we’ve had 50 to 100mm, the land has been able to absorb that rainfall and we’ve seen river rises without it being too excessive. 

“We’ll probably see another couple of similar events over winter.”