Dry, gusty and damaging northerly winds are lashing southeast Australia today, with associated warmth also helping the fire danger to soar. A steep temperature gradient associated with a cold front is producing a vigorous north to northwest airflow over South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and southern New South Wales. The powerful winds have been affecting western parts of South Australia since Saturday, and have spread throughout the state and into TAS and VIC today. Tasmania has seen some of the strongest winds today, particularly in the south and west. Bushy Park was bludgeoned with a wind gust of 120km/h around 11:30am, its strongest in more than a decade. Hobart recorded a 106km/h gust just before midday, its strongest in almost two months. Widespread strong winds have also been recorded across SA and VIC, reaching damaging (90km/h+) in many places. Some of the most notable gusts so far have been 102km/h at Melbourne Airport, 113km/h in the Grampians, 102km/h at Snowtown and 95km/h at Strathalbyn.. Many places are also seeing their warmest days since either early autumn or summer, and combining with these winds are causing the fire danger to soar. Extreme Fire Danger is expected across SA's North West Pastoral today, with many other regions across the nation's southeast also experiencing very high to severe fire danger, including Tasmania's South East. Potentially damaging winds will continue throughout the afternoon, before easing later in the afternoon and evening. The front has been pushing east during the day, and has already caused a significant reduction in winds across SA's west. The front will have spread through much of populated SA by the late afternoon, before reaching Melbourne a few hours before midnight.