Thousands of homes were left without power as Victoria sweltered through its hottest night of the summer, with record demand being blamed for causing failures across the state's distribution network.
Temperatures did not drop below 30 degrees Celsius in Melbourne until 4:00am, and remained above 30C in Mildura and the north-west.
About 50,000 homes across the state lost power, and many were still blacked out this morning.
The State Government said while there was plenty of power being generated, the spike in demand caused blown fuses and failed transformers on the distribution network.
Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said it was the highest peak demand ever recorded in Victoria on a Sunday.
"We had an astonishing 46,000 people who lost their energy supply due to a combination of factors, all related to the excessive heat and humidity built up over a number of days," she said.
"Peak demand was around about 9,100 megawatts.
"It occurred at about 5:30pm last night, putting that additional strain on the electricity infrastructure and that's what caused the localised outages across parts of the state."
Senior forecaster Richard Carlyon from the Bureau of Meteorology said the high humidity in Melbourne would stick around until Tuesday morning.
"It was a hot and humid night in Melbourne," he said.
"The temperature dropped to 28.4 degrees at 5:30am — not quite a record. The all-time record for January is 30.6C."
In the state's north-west overnight temperatures remained in the low 30s.
There will be speed restrictions on a number of V/Line regional train services today due to the heat.
Relief to come on Tuesday morning
The BOM has forecast a sultry top of 35C for Melbourne today with an afternoon change, but relief will not come until tomorrow.
"We'll probably have to wait until the early hours of Tuesday before that tropical moisture starts to move away, and by later tomorrow morning we should have cool and much less humid conditions throughout Melbourne," Mr Carlyon said.
"It has been fairly dry over the last few days. We've missed the bulk of the storm activity but we may see falls of around 10 to 30 millimetres throughout Melbourne during tonight and tomorrow morning.
"It will cool off — it will take some time to cool off — but certainly much cooler than last night."
Temperatures in Melbourne reached 37.8C at about 3:40pm on Sunday and in many regional areas it reached well into the 40s.
Surf Lifesaving Victoria said 80 people were rescued at the state's beaches on the weekend.
Authorities urged people to take care of vulnerable members of the community, such as the elderly and the ill.
They also told pet owners to make sure animals had plenty of water and access to shade.
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