The Goulburn River at Shepparton has peaked, with a flood level of 12.06 metres reached late on Sunday night, just three centimetres below the level of the devastating 1974 flood.

Under blue skies, large parts of the large regional city with a population of approximately 70,000 in Victoria's Northern Country remains awash this Monday, with the river level sitting around 12 metres. It is expected to remain above the major flood level of 11 metres throughout the day.

A family member's farm in Murchison, 30 minutes from Shepparton. Absolutely inundated. They've been out on a dinghy trying to save lambs @GuardianAus @natasha__may pic.twitter.com/K4612wzVgB

— Caitlin Cassidy (@caitecassidy) October 16, 2022

• It hasn't rained in Shepparton since early Saturday morning, and indeed the city itself didn't receive an enormous amount of rain in last week’s deluge, with 76.8 mm from Thursday to Saturday.
• While that was still a three-day total that comfortably exceeded the October average, the vast majority of the floodwater is coming from upstream where it rained much more heavily. 
• We reported last week that some areas of Victoria saw record rainfall, including 224 mm in two days at Strathbogie North, which sits in the catchment of the Goulburn River.

Image: Streets have become rivers. Source: @dookiecol via Instagram.

The Goulburn River actually rises in the western part of the Vic high country near Mt Buller, and while it is damned early in its course by Lake Eildon, that lake is currently spilling over.

It all adds up to a picture of devastation which you can see in the images throughout this story, even though as we mentioned at the top, today's weather looks pretty benign with blue skies and light winds.

The clear, mild conditions should stick around in Shepparton and the north of the state for a few days with temps rising to the mid-twenties by midweek.

Image: Much of Shep is a no-through road today. Source: @dookiecol via Instagram.

Rain then returns later in the week, and at this stage, it looks like it could be quite heavy again, as we wrote in our story on Monday morning.

The flood peak is also yet to arrive further north at Echuca/Moama, the Vic/NSW border towns located just a few kilometres downstream of where the Goulburn River meets the Murray.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of people have been evacuated in this disaster, while Victorian SES crews have carried out at least 400 water rescues across the state. As ever, please keep checking our warnings page for the latest flood warnings.