On the southeastern continental shelf of Brazil the wintertime subtidal variability of the circulation is highly dominated by the passage of cold fronts. Hydrographic data for the region reveal that during this (July, August, September) season only a weak vertical stratification is observed. In this paper the response of the region to cold fronts is studied by using a barotropic finite element model, forced by a conceptual cold front wind field derived from the analysis of coastal winds and satellite imagery. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1992