Ararat State Emergency Service unit, Ararat Rural City Council and VicRoads crews were kept busy late Tuesday afternoon and into the evening after the storms hit early afternoon.

Hail and heavy rain showers were also thrown into the mix, which along with the strong gusts of wind made for a dangerous combination. Despite the wild weather only 8.2 millimetres of rain was recorded to 9am on Wednesday morning in Ararat and a further 7.2mm to 9am yesterday.

The storms also caused widespread power outages, with around 1000 customers off supply in the north of Ararat on Tuesday afternoon.

Ararat SES personnel were called to a number of areas surrounding Ararat, including road blockages on the Western Highway, Pyrenees Highway and Moore Street.

Trees had to be cleared from the Western Highway near Armstrong as well as near Dunworthy on the Pyrenees Highway. Part of Moore Street was blocked near the Gordon Street roundabout before SES crews could clear the road.

Ararat SES controller Geoff Dunmore said in this region, which stretches from Bacchus Marsh to the South Australian border, SES crews attended 104 call outs, with the major areas hit by the storms being in the Horsham, Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat areas.

''We didn't cop the full force of it here,'' Mr Dunmore said.

Areas such as Dimboola and St Arnaud were also hit by wild weather.

''The Dimboola and St Arnaud areas usually don't get hit by these sort of storms,'' Mr Dunmore said.

Unusually, Mr Dunmore said that if Horsham and Stawell suffer bad storms, Ballarat generally does as well, but if the storms are centred on Ararat, it generally comes from across the Grampians and other areas are not affected.

With storms such as experienced on Tuesday, Mr Dunmore said house damage is usually caused by strong gusting winds.