UPDATE: LIGHTNING strikes have started several fires across Victoria this afternoon.

A State Control Centre spokeswoman told Weekly Times Now about 4.50pm that within the last hour "a batch" of fire reports had been made.

She said lightning was occurring across a large area of the state.

"There's a lot of activity going on across the state particularly in the Ballarat Grampians area," she said.

There are several advice messages as of 4.50pm today including for the Moorabool Shire, Happy Valley, Cape Clear, Gordon, Ballan North just a name of few locations.  

The Bureau of Meteorology this afternoon issued a severe thunderstorm warning for a large area of the state stretching from Rainbow and Edenhope in the west through Ballarat into High Country towns of Bright and Corryong.

Forecaster Peter Newham told Weekly Times Now there had been showers and storms over a lot of the state already.

He expected there to be "quite big storms south of Ballarat, west of Mortlake and to Hopetoun and Charlton and around Mt Buller and Mt Hotham".

"Some areas could get quite a bit of rain, maybe 20, 30, 40mm in an hour or two."

The warning also includes flash flooding, damaging winds and large hailstones.

He said about 30mm of rain fell over the Mt Hotham region yesterday.

"There's the potential lightning could start fires. Hopefully (the rain) it's a blessing but it's not always the case."

The warning states in fire-affected areas that there may be the potential for landslides and debris on roads due to extreme weather conditions.

Lightning yesterday started several fires in the Corryong area.