It might not be Christmas, but there was more red dust over the town this morning than I have ever seen in Sydney. Actually, that wouldn't be too hard, but there was an awful lot of dust. (I wonder why it was reported as 'kilotonnes', rather than the wonderful sounding 'gigagrams', though ;-)
Unfortunately, I got the camera out just as the sun rose high enough to escape the scattering effect causing the eery red glow. Even once it had dissipated, the dust cloud reduced visibility and the cars drove past looking like they'd just come back from the outback. In Parramatta, the dust not only stole the lustre of our newish building, but managed to cover even the underground areas of the station.
The dust may have settled, but the wind still hasn't let up. Quite an unusual day.
2 comments:
What could be the source of the red dust?
The Australian Video
Central Australia, also known as the "red centre". I have heard reports that part of the cause is fairly recent floods (which dump sediment in the area), followed by more recent dry weather, and then the winds. (Mind you, most people don't realise that the red light effects in the early hours were largely unrelated to the colour of the dust!)
These sorts of storms are apparently reasonably common in the inland, and even Adelaide, but they have to be pretty huge to have such an impact here on the coast.
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