Larpent dairy farmer Lachie Sutherland said he watched as snowflakes landed on his dog and cattle at 5.30am on Tuesday.

He said it was 1.4 degrees but it felt like it was in the negatives.

“It was quite unusual because it wasn’t windy,” he said.

“I was getting the cows in and there was a bit of rain, then the snow started to fall. It was quite heavy, to the point that it was sitting on the ground.

“I rang my dad (also a dairy farmer) who said he had woken up about 60 years ago to find snow falling.”

Mr Sutherland said his cattle appeared to enjoy the snow more than the rain.

“It was a pretty cool sight, just a shame it was still so dark,” he said.

“It was a good distraction from everything else that has been going on though.”

Mr Sutherland uploaded a video to Twitter just before 7am and received more than 1000 likes and 200 shares in the five hours that followed.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Tom Fejes said there was a “cold snap” over the south-west that was expected to last a number of days.

He said Victoria was looking at “potentially the coldest run of four days since 1975 for August”.

“In July 2015 we had a pretty similar run of cold days but for August it is a cold sequence of days on the way,” Mr Fejes said.

It was 4.5 degrees in Warrnambool at 7.20am Tuesday but it felt like -4.

Mr Fejes said more cold temperatures, as well as showers and possible hail, were expected along the coast.

“We could see some of that around Portland and Warrnambool in particular but it will push into more central and eastern areas tomorrow morning,” he said.