“This is going to be dramatic in its impact. We expect that roads and rail will be affected,” she said.

“We are encouraging people to think about not involving themselves in unnecessary travel and be really conscious that you might have to take an alternative route home from work or wherever you have to be.”

“Don’t drive through flood waters. As little as 13 centimetres of water on the road can get you into really serious strife.”

Ms Pulford visited Beaufort on Friday to meet with Agriculture Victoria staff and Pyrenees Shire Council about flood preparation for residents and farmers as rainfall of up to 150 millimetres per day was forecast.

When asked whether the government was concerned about any specific regions such as Ballarat or the Wimmera, which both suffered flooding in September 2016, Ms Pulford said there were a number of areas at risk.

“There are some communities, and they know who they are, that do lie a little lower and are more susceptible to flooding than others,” Ms Pulford said.

“I think we don’t need to jump at shadows; we need to be as well-prepared as we can.”

Ms Pulford urged people to be sensible and prepare for the conditions and said emergency service would be working around the clock.

“People across Victoria are preparing for what I think is going to be extraordinary weather over the next couple of days,” she said.

“There are forecasts of between 100 to 200mm across much of the state.

“These are very significant amounts of rain and I think the work that has been done, led by the SES but supported by many community organisations and the entire emergency services, is making sure that everybody is as ready as they can be.”

Ms Pulford said a series of extreme weather events, from late season frosts, golf ball-sized hail and now heavy rain, had ruined a lot of farmers’ hopes for the year.

“For out farmers, this year has been been really terrible timing,” Ms Pulford said.

“Our grain farmers in particular had been full of hope and excitement for what 2017 was going to bring and in the last few weeks they have had frost, hail and now what is going to be significant rainfall.

“Our farmers have been working day and night to get as much out of the harvest as they can; some areas are going to be more impacted than others so they were more advanced in their harvest.”

Ms Pulford said the government had provided support for farmers to get ready for the weekend’s conditions and Agriculture Victoria’s emergency response teams were all ready to go.

“Our other advice to farmers is to move livestock and machinery of value to higher land if possible,” she said.

“And also to think about where livestock evacuations might need to occur.

“Our message for people right across regional Victoria is: prepare for this, think about how you are going to spend the weekend, think about how you are going to get from A to B and think about the other responsibilities you have got to livestock.”

Pyrenees Shire councillor Michael O’Connor said people in his municipality were fairly well aware of what kind of flooding problems they were likely to have.

“The people that are are going to be affected by flooding know who they are,” he said.

“We have done a lot of work over the last four or five years to alleviate as much as possible.

“Council has certainly tried to be a proactive as we can; we have sand and sandbags scattered around the shire at Lexton, Waubra, Avoca and here in Beaufort.”

Cr O’Connor said the shire had called on emergency service and the community for support , including from the minimum security Langi Kal Kal Prison at Trawalla.

“We have had great support from the inmates at Langi Kal Kal with filling sandbags to be deployed here in Beaufort,” he said.

“I’ll remind people to be careful be prepared and not to do stupid things that could put themselves or others in danger.

“Council will be around as much as we possibly can should anything go really wrong.”

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