The red dust is over the town

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.