A chilly blast has smashed south-east Australia with some of the fiercest winds in years and blizzards that dumped buckets of snow on the ski slopes.

Weatherzone said wind gusts of about 120km/h in Victoria, NSW and South Australia on Friday and Saturday were the strongest in up to three years.

The extreme cold front dumped thick snow on the popular winter playgrounds of Thredbo, in the NSW Snowy Mountains, and Victoria’s alpine slopes, creating an incredible frozen landscape.

There were blizzard conditions above 1200 metres in alpine regions, although these were were expected to ease early on Sunday.

Victoria’s Mount Buller had more than 25 centimetres of snow, with as much as 50 centimetres expected by the end of Saturday.

“The depths are creeping around the 80-centimetre mark and the flakes are falling beautifully,” resort spokesperson Rhylla Morgan said.

Victoria’s Mount Buller is a winter wonderland. Photo: Facebook

Thredbo in the NSW Snowy Mountains region similarly received 27 centimetres of snow overnight.

Weatherzone reported that the “feels like” temperature at the top of Thredbo hit -26.2 degrees at 3.40pm on Saturday.

There was a wind gust of 126 km/h a few minutes earlier, making for a wild afternoon, while the air temperature was colder than -4 degrees all day.

Thredbo Resort said the entire mountain and village had been covered in a thick blanket of fresh white snow, “creating magical wintry scenes for guests to wake up to”.

“The snowstorm rolled in yesterday (Friday) evening bringing heavy snowfall, blizzard conditions and strong winds,” a media release said.

“Experts forecast that this low-pressure system will continue to bring lots more snow in the coming weeks.

“This significant snowfall is getting skiers and snowboarders excited to shred fresh powder this weekend.”

Weatherzone said the cold front had caused “significant and widespread damaging winds” across parts of southern SA on Friday.

It would continue to bring wild winds to parts of Victoria and eastern NSW until early Sunday, including populated areas of NSW and the ACT.

Can’t see the forest for the snow at Thredbo. Photo: Thredbo Resort

The situation in South Australia was particularly severe with the damaging weather causing power outages for tens of thousands.

Damaging winds swept across the Adelaide metropolitan area, the upper and lower south-east of the state, the Flinders Ranges, mid north, Murraylands, Mount Lofty Ranges, and north-east pastoral districts.

About 45,000 customers had power outages because of bad weather from 5am on Friday, SA Power Networks acting head of corporate affairs Cecilia Schutz said on Saturday afternoon.

Crews were repairing downed powerlines and restoring power.

Snowed-in at Falls Creek Resort. Photo: Facebook

The state’s emergency services had more than 450 requests for assistance, including a partial building collapse at Mount Gambier, since 8am on Friday.

Most requests for help related to downed trees and trees on cars.

There were damaging wind warnings for Victoria, South Australia, NSW and the ACT with temperatures plunging up to 6 degrees below average in some areas.

-with AAP