Unique Dust Storm

**Chantelle** · 09-22-2009, 04:46 PM

Here's an image taken out my back door of my house in NSW. Huge winds last night brought orange dust from the west to the east coast of Australia. This is on the Central Coast, north of Sydney, Sydney has been hit even worse then you see here. Everything has been delayed, planes, ferries, etc. I have never seen anything like this before.

And this image isn't colourised (the colour is exactly what it is outside my house).

**tomorrowstreasures** · 09-22-2009, 05:30 PM

WOW!

What a mess that is going to be to clean up!

**Chantelle** · 09-22-2009, 05:54 PM

Yep, I'm staying inside for a while. My asthma might chuck a fit if I go out there.

**JAS_Photo** · 09-22-2009, 06:35 PM

THat is weird. The only thing similar I can think of is when Mt. St. Helen's blew. I was living in Lethbridge at the time and everything was covered in a fine white dust. It blew in like a big snow storm turning everything white..

**Mad Aussie** · 09-22-2009, 07:54 PM

The winds have just hit up here in Brissy too and the sky is starting to dust up. They say it won't be as bad up here as Sydney way though thankfully.

This isn't a rare occurance though ... we get these dust storms from time to time. This one in the Sydney region is particularly bad though.

Here you see a gallery of images people have today this morning of the dust storm ... http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,236...07150,00.html#

**Michaelaw** · 09-22-2009, 09:00 PM

Wondering about the color? Sand perhaps?

**Chantelle** · 09-22-2009, 09:26 PM

I think its the red dirt from the desert that is making it that colour. it was a lot redder earlier this morning. starting to clear up now, its not as orange, more brownys-dirty look. Winds are still very very high.

**Mad Aussie** · 09-22-2009, 10:06 PM

That's right ... it's from high winds over the inland deserts. It takes the right conditions to cause this but they do happen every couple of years somewhere in the country. Millions of tons of desert sand and dirt are sent out to sea. It's not as bad as it looks usually though. A quick car wash and things return to normal again afterwards.

Here in Brissy it's hit now also and it's a bland yellowish colouring here. As they said ... not as bad as Sydney copped.