Rain and damaging winds are set to sweep across Victoria as part of a cold front forecast to bring blizzard conditions and a decent dump of snow to the state's alpine regions.
Gusts of up to 130km/h are expected for the alps late on Wednesday "which is in the destructive warning category" according the Bureau of Meteorology's Rod Dickson.
"Elsewhere around the state, wind gusts peaking around the 90 to 100km/h mark (are forecast) into the early evening," he said.
"In Melbourne the windiest period will probably be between 7pm and midnight.
"Conditions should ease following the passage of the cold front around midnight."
A band of rain is also set to pass over Victoria, reaching the capital about 8pm. The showers are expected to stretch through until tomorrow.
"By the time people get up on Thursday morning conditions will be generally fine," Mr Dickson said.
"But we should see about 5mm of rainfall through most suburbs with that rain band overnight."
Road users are warned to take care in hazardous conditions.
"The windy conditions over the next few days are going to bring some large swells to the coast, in particular the southwest and west and south Gippsland coast where we could see significant wave heights reaching eight or nine metres just off the coast," the meteorologist said.
