It's going to be a blowy old weekend across several states, especially southern parts of South Australia and New South Wales, and pretty much all of Victoria.

The cold front and deep low pressure system in the Great Australian Bight (which we've written about several times in recent days) will track eastwards, bringing with it showers, cool temperatures for spring and some pretty wild winds.

Numerous warnings have been issued today by the Bureau of Meteorology on Friday ahead of the weekend, including:

• South Australia: A Severe Weather Warning for damaging wind gusts developing over the southeast, including parts of the Mount Lofty Ranges and Kangaroo Island, on Saturday.
• Victoria: A Severe Weather Warning for damaging Winds for the South West, Wimmera and parts of Mallee Forecast Districts.
• NSW/ACT: A Sheep Graziers Warning for the Southern Tablelands, South West Slopes, Snowy Mountains and Australian Capital Territory forecast districts

Marine wind warnings are also in place, as well as continued flood warnings in the wake of the rain that has fallen in the Murray-Darling Basin this week, so please keep checking our warnings summary page here.

Meanwhile a line of rain and thunderstorms is crossing Victoria on Friday afternoon as the cold front sweeps across the state.

If you look at the 3 pm radar image above and the 3 pm synoptic chart below, you can see how the storms more or less mirror the location of the front. Indeed it's the colder airmass pushing the warmer airmass up and over the top that creates the necessary instability for storms.

Once this front has moved across Victoria, the chance of storms will be reduced, however persistent showers can be expected throughout the weekend in SE South Australia and most of Vic, with snow in the Victorian Alps and the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW.

As mentioned, those strong winds will also be a feature of the weekend weather. It has already been windy this Friday, with gusts up to (or slightly exceeding 70 km/h) in most parts of Victoria and even stronger gusts in coastal and elevated parts of South Australia.

In short, if you're wearing a hat today or over the weekend, best make it a beanie.