After a windy night and morning in Melbourne, temperatures will dive this afternoon as a cold front sweeps over the city.

Blustery northerly winds ahead of the approaching front saw gusts reach up to 100km/h at Melbourne's Olympic Park weather station shortly before midnight last night. Elsewhere in the state, wind gusts also reached 107km/h at Mount William and 106km/h at Mount Hotham early this morning.

Image: Forecast surface wind speed and direction according to the ACCESS-C model, showing strong norherly winds over central Victoria on Tuesday morning.

The strong northerly winds caused the atmosphere to remain well-mixed overnight, allowing warm air to linger near the surface. This resulted in Melbourne's warmest night since March and its warmest September night in seven years, with the mercury only dipping to a low of 18.8ºC. The city's long-term average minimum temperature at this time of year is 8ºC.

This morning will remain warm and windy before a cool change sweeps through Melbourne in the early afternoon. The change may cause a few showers in and around Melbourne during the middle of the day, before drier and cooler weather to end the day.

In the wake of today's cool change, Melbourne will have a cooler night tonight and day tomorrow. Wednesday's forecast top of 16 degrees is a few degrees cooler than last night's lowest temperature.