Thursday, September 24, 2009

Dust storm

I interrupt my usual obsession with food to show you the dust storm that blanketed south-eastern Australia yesterday. Strong winds lifted dust from the central deserts and carried it to the coastal regions, in a once in a life-time serious dust storm. It covered Sydney in the morning, stopping flights and ferries. By lunch time it had made its way to Mt Tambourine, where Mr Brisvegan and I were finishing a short holiday. Here are some images:

This is the road ahead of our car:


A shot of the sun, directly overhead:



The high tension power lines leading away from the road. You can barely see the next tower, which was less than 100 metres away:


We drove back to Brisbane through the dust storm. It was like driving in fog. Visibility was less than 50 metres.

The dust blanketed south-east Queensland for the rest of the day. Everything was an eerie ochre twilight. However, the air was mostly clear today.

While this was rather dramatic, there was little lasting damage for most people. The wind may have damaged a few trees (not near us, thank goodness). However, some people suffered respiratory distress, which can be dangerous for asthmatics. I hope all the east Australian bloggers, readers and their loved ones are OK.

6 comments:

  1. Hee hee, you're the one who posted about Mt Tambourine on Vegsoc? I've spent so many days singing a silly song because of that post :P

    Seriously though, I'm glad you're safe and sound! I wouldn't have wanted to be driving in that!!

    I just finished most of the cleaning up from it this afternoon.

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  2. Yes that was me! I will do some food reviews in the next few days.

    If you had to do a lot of cleaning, it sounds like you had it worse than us. A quick vacuum and car wash and we were all back to normal.

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  3. Beware... its sup happening again on Saturday! I certainly didnt enjoy the taste of dust in my mouth! Amazing to see tho. Glad you made it home from your holiday okay!

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  4. Townsville gets everything a bit late... we got dusty yesterday, and it's still hanging around today. It isn't as orange as it was further south but I'm not looking forward to the predictions that more is on its way.

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  5. It was a crazyday indeed. I was working in Paddington and had to drive to Mount Gravatt in the middle of the day for a staff meeting. You could bearly see anything.

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  6. Our clean up wasn't as bad as some I don't think, but the car washes were packed out and the clothesline, pavers, windows etc all had/have to be washed (I'm not done yet, I'm lazy with cleaning the outside :P).

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