23 September 2009

Red sky in the morning .....

6.18am - The REM song "It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)" came to mind this morning as I awoke to a red sky and scenes reminiscent of "Armageddon". The smell of dust hung solidly in the air.

"Large areas have been shrouded in dust as the state experiences severe winds and unseasonably warm temperatures", says the radio news - What? no kidding !! Does this account for the my inability to see the trees clearly out my back door and the god awful orange glare?


Bureau of Meteorology spokeswoman Jane Golding said dust had settled on much of the state, including Sydney. "It's pretty widespread," she told ABC Radio.

Hmmm - not sure I want to drive Christopher to school right now. Rachel has a study day as her Year 11 examination start tomorrow. It's not looking too good and I don't think it's about to get better anytime soon.

7.20pm - Turns out it was Australia's worst dust storm in 70 years and blanketed the heavily populated east coast in a cloud of red outback grit from Broken Hill and into South Australia. The event nearly closed the country's largest airport and left millions of people coughing and sputtering in the streets. John went to work but did not venture out of the office all day - his view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge completely obliterated for much of the day.
It started to clear late afternoon and now I have a thin later of fine red dust throughout every nook and cranny inside and a thick clinging layer over everything outside. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow !!!

3 comments:

Tamarra said...

I know it was not fun but those photos are amazing. Such a pretty shade.. Vegas dust storms are brown.. just like it always is here LOL

Hope it cleans off quick

*Paula* said...

Woah! Those photo are amazing Jane!

mollie said...

Your photographs are incredible Jane! I cannot imagine such a sight ... is it better now? What happens when the dust settles ... is the clean-up a forever type job? Did you get out in it?

Terrible, but very interesting.
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Mollie aka readstoomuch