New South Wales/Queensland/SA: Duststorms - September 22-23 2009.

Getting reports from friends and media that it is like Mars there this morning - particularly the coast from Ulladulla to Newcastle.

Any reports?? Pictures??

Channel 9 morning show have plenty on this. Very red and dusty in Sydney this morning with most international fllghts being diverted to Brisbane.

Hey guys Just posted in the SA thread re these amazing dust storms I photographed from the plane late yesterday

Here are some photos.





More can be found at: http://www.theage.com.au/photogallery/national/sydneys-red-dawn-heads-for-brisbane/20090923-g0x8.html?selectedImage=0

My girlfriend on the Sunshine Coast has reported it's getting hazy and a tinge of orange there now too. Friend in Newcastle woke up to it this morning but didn't want to go out and get photos because she didn't want to get dust in her camera lens

Wow that is seriously insane guys!

Unusual to get that bad on the East coast but It is not a really bad one. Did see some stuff from Broken hill that WAS bad. Not only red but black! What has had me laughing was how many people were out walking/jogging in it! Idiots! Be on the lookout for a few cases of Q fever coming out of this. Mainly an outback sickness but with that much dust over populated areas will see more people exposed.

Surely it's a pretty decent one though?

Experts say a huge orange dust storm rolling through Australia's east coast is lining up to become one of the largest on record.

It has swept up enough dust every hour to fill thousands of semi-trailers and has blanketed Sydney in a grainy haze, disrupting air traffic and port operations.

Dr John Leys, the southern program coordinator of scientific program Dust Watch, says it is the worst measured storm in seven years of monitoring and the largest to reach Sydney since the 1960s.

Unless they are exaggerating?

here is todays modis sat pick, cool

floydlove wrote:Surely it's a pretty decent one though?

Experts say a huge orange dust storm rolling through Australia's east coast is lining up to become one of the largest on record.

It has swept up enough dust every hour to fill thousands of semi-trailers and has blanketed Sydney in a grainy haze, disrupting air traffic and port operations.

Dr John Leys, the southern program coordinator of scientific program Dust Watch, says it is the worst measured storm in seven years of monitoring and the largest to reach Sydney since the 1960s.

Unless they are exaggerating?

Oh it a big girl but not as bad as the news are saying. It's really not that surprising considering how dry that area to the inland is. All it needed was a wind event like that and away it goes. What I am saying is though that compared to the inland that is just your garden variety dust storm. A bery big garden variety dust storm. That one in Broken hill.....that was bad. I reckon the dust storm in Melbourne in 1983 looked more "end of the world" look about it.

are the media picking on this story just because it happened to Sydney? No one is mentioning the fact that the dust storm hit the entire coast plus QLD as well.

Here are some pics I took of the dust storm over SA yesterday
http://www.redbubble.com/people/rivergirl/journal/3816869-back-from-cruisin-the-mediterranean

Cool pics, RG, I agree that you should send them on to some news sites, definitely worthwhile

Welcome back btw, looking forward to hearing more about your holiday, hope you had a great time.

We've had some beauties down here in recent years. One may have been 2003 or 2002, sometime around then when I was going home on the train and visiblity went down to about 50m-100m. Complete grey out it was.

I know DB. I have remembered many dust storms over the years effecting us. Now the Sydneysiders know how we felt in 1983 when we all thought it was thje end of the world!! 26 years too late Sydneysiders! hahaha

The foorage of that storm coming into Broken Hill would be scary. Heard that even the underground mine was shut down during the storm. I suppose if you were working several hundred metres underground and all of a sudden dust started coming through the ventilation shafts it would be a little unsettling!

The reports I've seen is that this event is the about the biggest on record. There have been plenty of storms before but one that goes from SA to NSW to QLD over a period of 3-4 days and last for 24 hours at some locations is beyond precedent.

If you look at the source for this storm (central OZ) some sites are on track to have their driest year on record - eg Moomba has had just 11mm this year. It has also been by a large margin the warmest Jun->Sept on record and then we have had one of the biggest wind storms/lows in recent years and bang. I doubt there has been many occasions of such a perfect "storm".

By some contrast the air up here has been amazingly clear the last two days - last night you could clearly make out features more than 100km away (obviously some ducting was happening due to the temperature/humidity profile in the lower atmosphere).

details of melbourne dust storm if you are interested......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Melbourne_dust_storm

some interesting links between the two events....