Wild winds cause destruction in Melbourne

The wild winds that battered Melbourne have largely subsided, but they left a trail of destruction with trees down, damaged buildings and power outages.

A severe weather warning was issued for much of the state on Saturday, with damaging gusts reaching over 100km/h at Melbourne Airport.

The strongest were recorded at Fawkner where gusts reaching 107km/h.

The winds have moved out to the southwest of the state, and alpine areas will continue to be battered until early tomorrow morning, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

The front is expected to clear the state during the early hours of Sunday.

There have been over 1000 calls for help since midnight, mostly for building damage and trees on roads in metropolitan Melbourne.

Crews from outside the metro area are being called in to help with the massive clean-up, which is expected to continue well into the night, an SES spokeswoman told AAP.

Pictures on social media show a number of large trees uprooted, including a gumtree which fell on a car in Brunswick in the inner city.

A large brickwall and entry gate at a veterinary practice blew down in Flemington, and firefighters were called to assist after a roof became dislodged in Brunswick West.

"Crews found 12, five metre lengths of roofing iron which had been lifted and was flapping in the wind," an MFB spokeman said.

"Specialist high angle rescue crews and a ladder platform were dispatched to make the scene safe."

Melbourne's northwest and bayside suburbs were the hardest hit.

There has been no major structural damage, with most calls related to carports and loose tin panels blowing down.

Horse races at Caulfield were called off at about 2.30pm due to the high wind gusts moving barriers at the track.

At Melbourne Airport there were delays to flights arriving and leaving.

Power outages in the west and northwestern suburbs left about 800 homes without power.

The severe weather warning remains in place for the Central and South West districts, as well as parts of East Gippsland, North Central, North East, West Gippsland, South Gippsland and Wimmera.