A powerful cold front is surging across southeastern Australia with damaging winds, small hail and low-level snow. Early on Tuesday morning the cold front crossed Tasmania and has started affecting Victoria and southeastern South Australia. The coldest conditions are still almost 24 hours away as the powerful southwesterlies behind the front bring increasingly colder air. Damaging wind gusts are likely in all TAS and VIC districts, along with southern New South Wales and ACT districts. Alpine regions will be experiencing some of the most severe weather, with wind gusts likely to exceed 100km/h and blizzard conditions also likely. Already, Thredbo Top Station has seen wind gusts reach 102km/h. Melbourne will see its coldest weather of the year thus far. The rest of today should linger in the low-to-mid teens and at times feel close to ten degrees in the wind. Tomorrow morning showers are likely to bring small hail, with the mercury falling as low as six degrees and wild chill making it feel more like two or three degrees. By the afternoon the mercury will have crawled to 12 degrees amid the coldest day of the year thus far. In Hobart today, conditions will be very windy with wind chill making it feel close to 7-10 degrees all day. Tomorrow will start out even colder, with a very similar day to last Thursday. Snow is likely to settle on Mt Wellington, possibly as low 300 metres. From Wednesday night conditions will slowly become calmer and drier as a high pressure system moves in from the west. Tasmanians and Victorians will finally get some reprieve from the wild and windy conditions that have been reasonably consistent for more than a week. The calmest conditions will move across the region from Friday to Sunday, with generally clear skies.