Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Richard Carlyon said the wet weather was expected to ease by 4pm, but not before another burst of heavy rain over the city.

"After about 4.30pm we'll see most of the storm activity clear over Melbourne," he said.

"There's some showers and storms still moving up from Geelong that will move through the Melbourne area, but at this stage they don't look severe."

Thunder rumbled across Melbourne on Monday, but the storms dumped little more than 10 millimetres of rain over the city.

Outer areas, including Avalon and Geelong, received about 22 millimetres of rain.

More than 310 lightning strikes were recorded over Melbourne by company Global Position and Tracking Systems.

However, the severe storms were concentrated north of Melbourne, with areas between Bendigo and Swan Hill bearing the brunt of the wild weather. Wind gusts reached speeds of 85km/h in Swan Hill, on the state's northern border.

"The worst has really been well out of Melbourne," Mr Carlyon said.

The lightning strikes damaged overhead powerlines across the northern region, where more than 3700 PowerCor customers, in towns including Boort, Charlton and Dingee, remained without power at 3.30pm.

Mr Carlyon said a warm, humid air mass, which moved into Victoria from the northern states at the weekend, generated the stormy weather.

"We haven't had much humidity so far this spring, hence it's been a dry spring ... but across the weekend we saw moisture increase and that's made the atmosphere fairly tropical," he said.

The rain clouds are expected to clear overnight, although scattered showers are forecast for Tuesday.

Maximum temperatures are expected to remain about 20 degrees for most of the week, before the mercury rises to 26 degrees on Friday.

Partly cloudy conditions are forecast for the weekend, with top temperatures of 29 degrees on Saturday and 30 degrees on Sunday.

Melbourne's wettest day so far this year came on Sunday, November 16, when 40.6 millimetres fell across the city.