A blustery southerly change will sweep through Sydney this evening and it may cause damaging winds near the coast. A cold front crossing southeastern Australia produced wind gusts in excess of 100km/h around Melbourne this morning and is now tracking north along the NSW coast. The gusty change has prompted a severe weather warning for damaging winds in the higher terrain of the Snowy Mountains and ACT districts and along the coastal fringe from the Illawarra to Hunter. This warning area does include coastal parts of Sydney and Wollongong, although it stops just south of Newcastle. Southerly changes such as this one usually only bring a risk of damaging winds near the coast. Western suburbs of Sydney are unlikely to experience any damaging winds tonight. One positive aspect of the impending change for people sick of sweating is that the temperature will drop rapidly in its wake. The mercury should stay up around 30 degrees in Sydney through dinner time before the change arrives at around 9pm, give or take an hour, dropping the temperature to the low twenties overnight. Southerly winds will ease overnight and tomorrow morning, giving way to relatively warm northerly winds once again on Thursday afternoon. Despite the brief cool change this evening, Sydney is forecast to reach 27-30 degrees from Thursday until Sunday.