Elsewhere, two hikers who became stuck on the remote Wonnangatta walking track, also in the state’s High Country, were found safe and well on Monday evening.
The cold snap meant 26 centimetres of snow fell at Mount Buller by Sunday morning. Credit: Tony Harrington
“They’re just in an area where they’re, due to the snowfall, unable to progress further on the track,” Johnston earlier told ABC radio.
Specialised alpine search and rescue units used sleds to rescue trapped people, as emergency vehicles struggled to access those stranded because of snow-covered roads.
By Monday evening, Mount Hotham had recorded 62 centimetres of snow since the start of the long weekend, while Falls Creek had recorded 60 centimetres.
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Cross Country Skiing Association Victoria treasurer James Louw said the state’s alpine environments could become hostile quickly, especially for people who ventured in poorly prepared.
“The weather report doesn’t tell you how terrible you might feel when you’re out there,” he said. “It’s a really short timeframe from being OK to being hypothermic and unable to care for yourself.”
Louw said he often saw visitors heading to alpine resorts who had not brought the equipment necessary to stay safe, such as tyre chains.
Victorian farmers have welcomed the rain that has soaked the state across the long weekend, breaking records in the south-west, but they’re still hoping for more.
Mount Sabine, in the Otways between Lorne and Apollo Bay, had 137 millimetres fall since Friday, while the towns of Mortlake and Penshurst received their highest three-day June rainfall totals on record.
Warrnambool broke its highest single-day June total record after 39 millimetres of rain fell between 9am on Saturday and Sunday.
Simon Severin works as an agronomist, a type of scientist specialising in crop production, in Horsham.
He said farmers would be hoping for more rain in about a fortnight.
“We’ve had to sow nearly all the crop dry and wait for rain to bring the crop up, so the crops will emerge on this rain,” he said.
“I think everyone’s had more than 15 millimetres, up to 25-30 in places [in the Wimmera]. This will get the crops and the feed growing, but follow-up rain will be crucial. The soil will be very dry and this rain will be gone very soon.”
Meteorologist Daniel Sherwin-Simpson said more prolonged rain was expected in western Victoria next Monday.
The cold and wet conditions follow a warm and dry autumn that parched large parts of the state. Rainfall had been at the lowest on record for the past 16 months on Victoria’s south-west coast.
Victorian Farmers Federation president Brett Hosking said the rain was a welcome relief to farmers across the state, particularly for those in the south-west, where the drought has hit hardest.
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“We’ll need the rain to keep coming,” he said. “This didn’t fill the dams, it just started that process.”
Hosking said the drought had hit the mental health of many farmers and the rain would have relieved some of that stress.
“The rain would certainly have boosted the wellbeing of farmers across Victoria,” he said.
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