Meanwhile, the damage bill from wild weather in Melbourne at the weekend is expected to come to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Insurance Council of Australia was preparing for more than 40,000 claims as a result of thunderstorms in Victoria that caused significant hail damage.

The council has declared the event a catastrophe, and the damage bill is expected to exceed $200 million. Emergency services received more than 5500 calls for assistance in Melbourne alone.

Wagga Wagga was also recovering from a deluge of more than 110 millimetres, which broke the town's record for the most rainfall in 24 hours. The NSW government has declared the town and the Central Darling Shire a disaster area following flash flooding.

The Bureau of Meteorology said water was slowly receding from the south-western Queensland towns of Roma and Charleville after serious flooding.

A spokesman for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries said it was too early to tell how much the flood damage would cost but it was expected to be many millions of dollars.

The Insurance Council of Australia said 7500 insurance claims had been received.

Flood warnings were still in place for more than 15 rivers and creeks yesterday, and the town of Thallon remained cut off.

A spokesman for the Queensland Bureau of Meteorology said the flooding in Roma and Charleville had produced a large body of water that was now moving towards the NSW border. ''This water will create peaks and flooding in rivers along the way,'' he said.

The weather bureau said flooding could be expected at many small towns along the Culgoa, Paroo and Warrego rivers over the next week.

It also warned that towns further downstream, such as Walgett, Brewarrina, Bourke and Louth, could experience serious flooding over the next month.

''That water will move downhill slowly through NSW, and eventually into the Darling system,'' a spokesman said.