A severe weather warning is in place for three southern Australian states with a bitter cold front set to bring dust storms, hail and damaging winds.
The wild weather will move in early on Friday morning, with Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania all in the firing line.
Winds of up to 130km/h are forecast and abnormally high tides are tipped.
The cold front will hit the far west of South Australia first, before sweeping east through the state’s central and eastern districts and into Victoria.
A severe weather warning is in place for three southern Australian states with damaging winds and widespread showers expected (stock image)

The cold front will hit the far west of South Australia first, before sweeping east through the state’s central and eastern districts and into Victoria (stock image)
Stephen King, the Bureau of Meteorology’s Victoria senior meteorologist, told news.com.au his state will start feeling the effects of the cold front not long after South Australia on Friday.
‘But by the time people wake up there will be winds across most of Victoria with destructive winds in Alpine regions up to 130km/h while elsewhere winds gusts of 90 to 100km/h from first thing and right through most of the day,’ he said.
There will also be ‘miserable’ weather across the state into the weekend, with widespread showers and the possibility of hail and thunder, Mr King said.
He described the cold front as ‘unusual’ because it was ‘across a really widespread area’ and ‘for a significant amount of time’.
The BOM has also warned there is an ‘increased risk of raised dust across northern Victoria (on) Friday’.
Up to 30mm of snow is tipped to fall in Victoria’s Alpine areas courtesy of the cold front.



Parts of Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia will experience damaging winds on Friday courtesy of the fierce cold front
Tasmania is bracing for destructive winds in excess of 100km/h.
Most of the state will be impacted, with wind gusts expected to peak during Friday afternoon.
Abnormally high tides are possible in the state’s southeast in the evening.
‘A vigorous northwesterly wind stream develops during Friday ahead of a cold front to cross Tasmania late evening. Abnormally high tides in the southeast are possible, coinciding with a king tide in the evening,’ the BOM said.

Widespread showers are expected across Victoria on Saturday, with the possibility of thunder and hail (stock image)

Parts of Western Australia have already been impacted by the severe cold front, with Perth already experiencing its wettest August since 1945
The BOM also added ‘sea levels could exceed the highest standard (astronomical) tide of the year by 30 to 40 cm with the evening high tide’.
Parts of Western Australia have already been impacted by the severe cold front, with record rainfall in certain areas.
‘Perth is experiencing the wettest start to August in a long time. Up to 9am (Thursday) morning we’ve had 101.6mm. This is wettest first nine days at Mt Lawley on record (back to 1993), and wettest in Perth since 1945 (103.1mm),’ the BOM said.
The wintry blast for southern Australia is in stark contrast to Sydney’s weather, with the city tipped to reach a high of 23 degrees on Friday and 25 degrees on Saturday.