A nasty period of damaging winds will hit southern and southeastern Australia during the next 48 hours, with severe weather warnings in place for some areas, including Melbourne and Adelaide.

A powerful cold front will pass over SA late on Friday before crossing Australia’s southeastern states overnight and on Saturday. This front will be embedded in a tight pressure gradient between a deep low pressure system to the south of Australia and a large high pressure ridge across central Australia.

Image: Modelled mean sea level pressure on Saturday morning. The tightly packed isobars over southeastern Australia represent a strong pressure gradient that will produce strong and damaging winds.

The result of this dangerous synoptic pattern will be widespread strong to gale force winds across parts of SA, Vic, Tas, NSW and the ACT between Friday and Sunday.

Northwesterly winds will initially increase ahead of the approaching front from today, before shifting to west to southwesterly on Saturday in the wake of the front. Damaging wind gusts are likely to occur ahead of, with and behind this cold front.

Image: Forecast wind gust (speed and direction) at 10am AEST on Saturday, July 8, according to the ECMWF-HRES model.

As of 10am AEST on Friday, severe weather warnings were in place for damaging winds in parts of SA, Vic and Tas, including Adelaide and Melbourne. Warnings are also likely to be issued in parts of NSW and the ACT ahead of the approaching cold front.

This front is also likely to cause rain, hail, snow and thunderstorms in parts of southern and southeastern Australia during the next few days. A flood watch has been issued in North East Victoria and parts of the state’s Gippsland region, where minor or moderate flooding may develop from Saturday.

Severe weather warnings will be updated regularly during the next 2-3 days, so be sure to check the latest warnings in your area for the most up-to-date information.