Bureau of Meteorology's Diana Eadie says preliminary investigations confirmed a short-lived but fierce tornado impacted parts of Horsham in the early hours of Monday morning.

"At this stage the damage with an EF1 - which is wind speeds at 138-177km," Ms Eadie said.

"This was a very short-lived system

"The entire event is likely to have occurred in less time than it's taken to boil the kettle - around a minute or so.

"It was not associated with a thunderstorm.

"It was associated with a very intense shower with a cold, windy and unstable air mass moving across the area."

Ms Eadie said every year there are reports of tornados in Victoria.

"With social media more people have footage they can submit for assessment and we're seeing more evidence of these sorts of things," she said.

"In particular in Victoria this year, whilst we often see tornados in more remote areas, this year we've seen them impacting more populated areas.

"As a result we've seen more damage across Victoria as a result of tornados.

Victoria SES chief officer operations Tim Wiebusch said over 97 calls for assistance had been received.

"76 of those have related to building damage," he said.

"We've seen roofs ripped off. We've seen loose objects around people's homes.

"We've also seen trees down and crop damage as well."

UPDATED - 11am:

Ambulance Victoria confirmed its services were called to the scene at about 1am but no one required treatment or transport.

UPDATED - 10.30am:

Bureau of Meteorology's Christopher Arvier said it was a possibility the weather event at Horsham overnight could have been a tornado.

"We currently have a team of severe weather meteorologists doing an assessment," he said.

"They hope to complete a preliminary assessment by this afternoon.

"What we do know at the moment is that there was some quite severe damage that occurred as a line of showers went over Horsham.

"There is a possibility there was a thunderstorm but we did see very strong winds across Victorian across the weekend.

"It is also possible it was association with very strong down bursts during some showers."

Just 3mm fell in the official Horsham Bureau of Meteorology rain gauge, located at the airport 4km out of town with 8mm recorded in other parts of the town.

From Wavell St in the south to roughly Mills Avenue in the north homeowners are currently in the clean-up phase, with some properties needing serious repairs.

The severity of the event came as a surprise with just 1-2mm forecast by the BOM.

Miriam Bradbury, senior forecaster with the BOM, said severe weather analysts were going through the data to see if the event was technically a tornado or a cell from a vigorous cold front.

She said with no lightning it was not technically a storm.

At the nearest BOM weather station, the Horsham aerodrome recorded 50kph winds, but Ms Bradbury said the localised nature of this kind of system meant much higher winds could have been seen in Horsham North.

"It is about 4km from the aerodrome to the area where the storm hit so you can have some big differences in that distance."

In terms of tornados, Ms Bradbury said they were rare, but not unknown in Victoria.

"We have one or two of this type of event every year, but usually they do not hit populated areas," she said.

The worst winds were localised on Horsham North, meaning there is no widespread damage in standing crops, although there were frequent reports of patchy falls of 5-15mm across much of the Wimmera, which still has a lot of crop still to be harvested.

UPDATED - 8.30am:

Amber Peters, of De Castella Dr, said the wind sounded like a train going past.

"It was out of no where - there was no wind before it," she said.

"It was so loud we couldn't actually hear anything.

"We had a 14ft trampoline go through our back fence but we couldn't hear it. All we heard was the wind."

Ms Peters said her children woke up and mentioned they had heard a loud bang.

"I thought I would get up and check on the dog," she said.

"Our back garden shed looks like it's been picked up and it's completely gone.

"Everything that was inside it is still sitting on the slab but the shed itself was just picked up and thrown over the back fence.

"We've found one side of it but we can't find the rest.

"We've got one leg left of the trampoline as well. We've got no idea where the rest of it is either."

Ms Peters said she walked around with her partner to ensure none of the property caught in the wind had injured anyone or property.

"We've got vacant land behind us and we could see movement going on over in a court which I believe copped the worst of it," she said.

"There was one house that looked like the roof had been peeled back.

"You could tell immediately it was just a line of destruction. We were saying it was like a tornado but who would believe that."

EARLIER - 7.30am:

A number of homes were impacted by a wind event in Horsham North overnight.

Since 7.30pm on Sunday, SES recived 56 calls for assistance, 44 for property damage and 11 for trees down.

A SES spokesperson said just before 1am on Sunday a severe wind event came through Horsham.

"There had been a number of homes impacted by the wind last night," they said.

"There were various levels of damage from roofs completely off to damage to roofs, broken windows and parts of buildings damaged - such as pergolas and verandas.

"My understanding there were a number of trees which had come down including impacts to power lines."

The spokesperson said the Bureau of Meteorology usually investigates incidents like this and make a report.

"Our SES volunteers from the Horsham unit are getting support this morning," they said.

"Ballarat, Bendigo, Hepburn, Gisborne, Bacchus Marsh and Hamilton are all assisting."

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