Sydney dust storm

[Paul B]

This is what I woke up to this morning. A full-on dust storm.



I can't even see either end of my street, and it's only about 200 meters long, with our house about in the middle.

Whats happened is that all the farmers out west of us have recently plowed their fields for spring planting. No rain for a couple months and all the topsoil dries out, then you get a shitload of wind and, basically, their field ends up in Sydney. It happened once before in the mid 80's, but nothing like this, I wish I had the skill of writing that would convey to you the colour of the light, up until an hour ago the entire sky was blood red, now it's orange/yellow, it's pretty freaky looking.

All flights into Sydney have been diverted (I guess this crap would just tear up a jet engine, never mind visibility), all ferry services on the harbour have been canceled. Doctors on the tv are saying to just stay home.

As an asthmatic who is just getting over my latest upper respiratory tract infection, pardon me if I take the day off. Today, I ain't going outside for love nor money, F*ck that.

And I have a look outside and see people jogging! In this! Idiocy!

Today is most definitely the weirdest day of the year, so far.

[Lillian]

Wow. That's awesome to look at, but I'm right there with you, not going out in it.

Spring time in New Mexico is like that, well, except for the color. The air turns khaki. They'll close down the highways when the winds really pick up, either for visibility issues or wind strength. Its not uncommon to get winds at 160 kph through the passes with sustained winds of 80 - 105 kmp. People don't understand that they are serious when they say stay off the roads. There is always at least one tracker-trailer truck a year that gets knocked on to its side trying to get through a pass.

[Craig]

Ah ! so that's the reason Paul . I woke up to "RED"also . It's gone to an orange colour at the moment . Very freaky !

[Nick]

We had Aussie dust all the way over here in Christchurch NZ a couple of weeks back, it was weird the sun was out but the dust almost made it an overcast day.
If you have respiratory problems then I'd say it would have to be a pretty callous boss that would expect you to venture out in that lot! Take it easy and see it as an opportunity to catch up on "days of our lives" on tele.

[Paul B]

Ah ! so that's the reason Paul . I woke up to "RED"also . It's gone to an orange colour at the moment . Very freaky !

You've got it up there too? You must be, what, 3 or 4 hundred miles north?

Man, imagine what all that stuff weighs in total. The mind boggles.

It's starting to settle now and everything is covered in red dust.

Nick, you'll get this in a day or two.

[Craig]

Still blowing up here Paul . I've got no choice but to venture out into it . Wish me luck !

[Paul B]

Here's another pic I just pulled off the web. Pretty much what I saw this morning, just in a different location. The colour is smack on though.

[sebastiaan56]

Here is my place at 6:20 am, taken on my iPhone which colour corrects but you get the idea,





I remember that this happened in Melbourne a few years ago as well, there will be some stunning photos in the press tonight,

[John Steele]

Paul that looks like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. Such an erie red/orange glow. I agree, stay inside as much as possible. I think I would wear a dust mask when outside. I've seen the sun blocked out by smoke from forest fires, but not to that degree. That's a lot of dust!
J

[Nick]

Nick, you'll get this in a day or two.

Gee thanks Paul!
Bloody farmers

[kiwigeo]

Most of the loess soils on Banks Peninsula are fine glacial flour that has been whipped up from riverbeds in the alps and deposited on BP by westerly winds.

Nick, you'll get this in a day or two.

Gee thanks Paul!
Bloody farmers

[Nick]

Most of the loess soils on Banks Peninsula are fine glacial flour that has been whipped up from riverbeds in the alps and deposited on BP by westerly winds.

One thing I do remember from my geography lessons at high school was that the predominant rock type of the Canterbury plains is Greywacke that was eroded and washed down from the alps. Infact the teacher was so passionate about this damn grey rock (& dedicated a large portion of the year's learning to it) that we called him Greywacke & do you know, to this day I still can't remember his real name!
Mind you I think he was as old as the rock itself so maybe that's why he could relate to it, he was around when it first got pushed up from the ocean floor

[Paul B]

And now it's beautiful, clear blue skies again...

What a strange day this has been. A good day to be alive to see something like this.

Unforgettable.

Gotta wash the car tho.

[Paul B]

This might be interesting;

Sydney pollution levels 1500 times their normal levels today. Initial estimates showed the dust plume stretched 600 kilometres along the NSW coast from Sydney to the Queensland border this morning, dumping up to 75,000 tonnes of dust per hour into the Tasman Sea.

[Nick]

As long as it does dump it in the Tasman!
Saw it on this evenings news & yeah the 'live' reporter had a backdrop of the harbour bridge and blue skies...go figure. They also spoke to a Doctor who was saying about the number of "fit young joggers" that were being hospitalised with respiratory problems...Plonkers! They were also reporting that we can expect some of it here by Friday (as you first pointed out Paul) but the experts believe it will be negligable in it's effect. Hope so because I got enough problems with constantly washing the pollen off my car at the moment without red dust as well (which would soooo clash with my green Holden)!

[Paul B]

Shit, Joggers! They'd have been better off staying home and taking the healthier option; sitting on their bums and smoking three packs of ciggies. I'm not kidding here, but I guess you'd have to see what I saw to know that. Four packs might have been healthier than a 5km run this morning.

[kiwigeo]

They were also reporting that we can expect some of it here by Friday (as you first pointed out Paul) but the experts believe it will be negligable in it's effect. Hope so because I got enough problems with constantly washing the pollen off my car at the moment without red dust as well (which would soooo clash with my green Holden)!

You've got more to worry about from that permanent bldi petrochemical haze that seems to hang over Christchurch during most of the summer.

Im surprised you wash that car yourself...thought you'd have your Chem 101 lab groupies out doing it for you

[kiwigeo]

that the predominant rock type of the Canterbury plains is Greywacke that was eroded and washed down from the alps. Infact the teacher was so passionate about this damn grey rock (& dedicated a large portion of the year's learning to it) that we called him Greywacke & do you know, to this day I still can't remember his real name!

The gravels forming the Canterbury Plains are quite interesting...they show up on the offshore seismic as giant foreset beds...quite impressive. I remember staring at same while doing a well off Timaru for Tap Oil back in 2006.

[Allen]

We landed in Australia 7 years ago, and 2 days after we had arrived we had a big dust storm like that on the NSW south coast over night. Woke up in the morning to having that stuff settle on everything, then a very brief rain. Just enough to turn it all into baked on red mud.

We were really wondering what we had got ourselves into. Never had seen anything like that before.

The Bureau is forecasting for the dust to arrive in Cairns today, but not as bad as down south.

[Nick]

The gravels forming the Canterbury Plains are quite interesting...they show up on the offshore seismic as giant foreset beds...quite impressive. I remember staring at same while doing a well off Timaru for Tap Oil back in 2006.

Must admit the teacher may have been abit eccentric but how the canterbury plains were formed (and why they give us some of the purest water in the world) and what they are composed of, still stays with me to this day, can't remember a single bloody thing about the rest of my geography lessons.

[Hesh1956]

I hope that everyone is OK - I saw this on CNN last evening.

Question: When this happens how much of this dust settles on things and how much clean up is required? I know Paul wanted to wash the car so I am wondering how thick the residual dust is?

This kind of reminds me of the film Apollo 13 where the aboriginals build a fire that sends embers into space that the orbiting space craft can see outside the windows.

Amazing!

[Kim]

I hope that everyone is OK - I saw this on CNN last evening.

Question: When this happens how much of this dust settles on things and how much clean up is required? I know Paul wanted to wash the car so I am wondering how thick the residual dust is?

Figures from scientist quoted on the new tonight estimate that 16,000 tons of dust per hour settled on Sydney yesterday.

Cheers

Kim

[Hesh1956]

My god that's a lot of dust!!!

I hope that you guys have some industrial strength vacs there or perhaps you should just invite Sarah Palin to come and speak....

[Allen]

The dust storm that I experienced 7 years ago on the south coast had us cleaning cars for insurance work for weeks. Buffing paint and replacing weather strips and changing glass because of scratches went on for months. With a little water that red dust stains everything.

[Nick]

The dust storm that I experienced 7 years ago on the south coast had us cleaning cars for insurance work for weeks. Buffing paint and replacing weather strips and changing glass because of scratches went on for months. With a little water that red dust stains everything.

We often get freak Hail storms here (golf ball sized) that do plenty of damage to cars & I often think it's funny how things work out, one person's misery can be somebody else's gain.The owners of Panel shops must rub their hands together (not the workers I suspect) when they look out and see hail.