THE ominous warnings to Melburnians about a potentially life-threatening super storm were justified despite the city having only minor flooding, the weather bureau says.

The city was told to bunker down for an “absolutely massive” rainfall event over the weekend and several events were cancelled, including the Taste of Melbourne food festival at the MCG.

“Half the inhabitants of Melbourne have never ever seen anything like this,” the Bureau of Meteorology’s senior forecaster Scott Williams said on Thursday. “It is an event that poses a threat to life.”

About 7.4 million text messages were sent out to Victorians on Friday telling them to look out for flooding and stay safe.

But Melbourne was spared the brunt of the storm and the rain eased on Saturday. The weather bureau’s Victorian manager Dr Andrew Tupper defended the messaging sent in the lead up to the storm.

He said the storm was generally as expected and it was a “bonus” that the worst of it missed Melbourne.

“The way that it’s panned out has been similar to what we were predicting.

Shoutout the idiot who drove his maserati and into flood water and shoutout channel 7 for sharing the glorious footage pic.twitter.com/grdjvVcSZF — 1-800-treat-yo-self (@duhan_999) December 2, 2017

“It was certainly the kind of event worth preparing for,” Dr Tupper told reporters on Saturday.

“So if we had our time again, we would put out (warnings) with similar language to that.

“You judge the severity of the event, before you know exactly where that event is going to hit.

“That’s why we went out very hard because we could see it was certainly going to be a large and impacting weather event,” he said.

“We’re getting much better at forecasting it but we know we won’t always get it with precision three or four days before the event.”

While Melbourne remained relatively unscathed, parts of Victoria were indeed inundated.

The towns of Myrtleford and Euroa have been told to prepare to evacuate after the area received a season’s worth of rain in a day.

Locals are preparing by sandbagging their homes while some have already fled as rivers and creek bulge.

This northeast alpine area has copped the heaviest rainfalls since the storm arrived on Friday, with 170mm recorded at Euroa and 200mm at Strathbogie. Premier Daniel Andrews urged all Victorians to stay vigilant and look after each other, particularly those in the flood-threatened centres.

“Some of these rainfall totals we’ve seen are well and truly an entire summer’s rain almost in just a 24-hour period,” he told reporters in Melbourne. “That is unprecedented and it really has put a significant strain on many different communities.

“Make that phone call, look out for loved ones and be as well informed as you possibly can.” Rainfall had eased in most areas on Saturday, but the Bureau of Meteorology warned it was likely to pick up again in the evening.

“The northeast is expected to get another 30 to 50mm. That will really add to where the ground is saturated,” Dr Tupper said.

The SES has received more than 1300 calls for help so far, roughly half of them in the Melbourne area.