Speaking at the CFA incident centre in Horsham, Mr Brumby said he expected the damage bill to be in the tens of millions of dollars but less than from the Gippsland floods in 2007, which cost $60 million.

''There will be a lot of inconvenience, heartbreak and trauma to the people whose places have been flooded, but for most of the state it will have enormous benefits for agriculture,'' he said.

The Premier visited the hard-hit centres of Shepparton and Wangaratta on Monday morning. He said an extra 50 police and 50 army personnel from Puckapunyal had been deployed to help.

Mr Brumby said he had tried to visit the badly hit and isolated town of Charlton but his aircraft had been unable to land. He thought about 50 to 100 homes in Charlton had been flooded.

Horsham, which had expected to receive a flood peak this morning, looked like being spared. The smaller nearby centre of Glenorchy has received some inundation and farming land had been damaged.

The deputy incident controller for the Horsham area, acting Superintendent Colin Renton, said he did not expect any houses in the district to be flooded. ''But there will be a lot of wet paddocks, inundated farmlands and flooded minor roads.''

He said a significant event was expected in the small town of Locheil near Dimboola in about two days when flooding was expected on the Western Highway.