Spiders blanket parts of regional Victoria after wild weather

Millions of spiders have spun their webs over large parts of Gippsland in a bid to escape floodwaters after violent weather battered Victoria.

Millions of tiny spiders descended on a regional town in Victoria in a bid to escape recent wild weather.

Careful spun webs stretched for kilometres in wetlands along the South Gippsland Highway.

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"I didn't know what it was until I got out of the car and noticed they were webs and they were spiders all over them," Sale resident Marco Brunel told 9News.

"I turned a corner and when I saw them it was an amazing sight," photographer Lotje McDonald told 9News.

The phenomenon is known as the Gossamer effect or 'ballooning' - a survival instinct used by ground dwelling spiders to get away from floodwater after intense rain in the area.

"So what they do is they release this silk up and they act like snag wires.. they snag the vegetation up above and then they can quickly climb up and get out of the way," Museums Victoria's Dr Ken Walker said.

The spiders won't be there for long, with experts saying they will likely blow away with the wind.

Residents in parts of Victoria face a mammoth clean-up after a wild winter storm late last week destroyed homes and left entire towns cut off.

A man was killed and many thousands left without power potentially for several days from the weather that first struck last Wednesday night.