23 September 2009

Brown skies over Canberra

| warall
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So does anyone know why we have this brown muck in the sky today especially in the North? Is it smoke or dust?

[ED (Kramer) – I have been (unsuccessfully) attempting to get a pic of the tinged sky.
Meanwhile, nothing of note from BOM other than the description “dusty” in today’s ACT weather forecast.
I’m guessing the very strong NW winds overnight have swept up the topsoils from central NSW and southern QLD & NT.]

UPDATE
Supposedly the dust is because Lake Eyre has dried out. See the following sat image.

Dust clouds over Belconnen


Don’t wash your cars just yet, as red dirt is set to rain down tonight.

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Ull-a (sorry couldn’t help myself)

Gungahlin Al said :

Oh come on – the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one.

but still they come?

the dust has since moved to sydney, where they started warning everyone who was an asthmatic to stay indoors, keep the kids indoors,etc, etc. What i want to know is why the ACT government didn’t put out warnings for canberra?

Its not Martians weed… its Zombie vapour.

Gungahlin Al4:17 pm 24 Sep 09

Oh come on – the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one.

Holden Caulfield10:56 pm 23 Sep 09

I was going to mention that, but I thought no-one would’ve believed.

Its the red weed brought on by the Martians … c’mon has nobody read War of the Worlds?

Holden Caulfield11:12 am 23 Sep 09

Make sure you check out the pics from Sydney today. Looks like armageddon, haha! Much worse than our orange skies from the 2003 bushfires.

knockknock-eggman10:15 am 23 Sep 09

On a side note, my dam is full =) The ducks arent anywhere to be tho…might have ended up in Goulburn after last nights winds =)

The dust storm at Broken Hill yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrlD22HwPvI

We’ve got nothing on them. It went pitch black in less than 10 mins.

Gungahlin Al9:27 am 23 Sep 09

On closer inspection, not a lot of washing away if the dust has happened at all – just collected in patches. Surprising given I emptied 56mm out of the rain gauge today.
And the dust will be coming back tonight/tomorrow we’re being told. Gerni’s going to get a workout after all this (with tank water).

Gungahlin Al5:56 am 23 Sep 09

Well that’s all washed away now. Pretty substantial rainfall last night. Now we’ll have several days of high winds to dry everything out to a crisp again.
Talk about extremes…

Checking on my garden today and I noticed that my plants have red spots all over them.

And this would explain it.

I took a shot of the dusty sky over the BBP at lunch time http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff119/sheepgroper/100_1372.jpg weird pink sky contrasting with the blank white of the building panels.

glad i decided to get the bus today!

AussieRodney5:51 pm 22 Sep 09

And this 721 colour sat image from today.

Washed on sunday now covered in mud… fantastic!

Gungahlin Al4:04 pm 22 Sep 09

And here they are predicting what could be the dump of the season up in the hills over Saturday and Sunday. At least it will cover up all the brown snow.
Monday might be a good day off for a little bus trip to Perisher…

Pommy bastard said :

Hands up all those who washed their cars this weekend.

waves

Guilty as charged. Washed and polished both the cars on Sunday

Dust storm factsheet from NSW Dept. of Health

We might want a hazzard rating for dust storms right next to the UV Alter rating on the BOM site.

Bottom line: stay indoors while you can see the dust outside as prolong exposure can be harmful.

I have the weather for Canberra on my igoogle and it has a picture for the dust!

They list the current conditions as:

20°C
Current: Dust
Wind: NW at 24 km/h
Humidity: 60%

Just thought it was interesting as I’ve never seen a picture for dust before

Pommy bastard2:20 pm 22 Sep 09

Hands up all those who washed their cars this weekend.

waves

Here’s a couple of pics taken around 1pm. It’s surprisingly dificult to get a good focussed picture of dust 🙂

http://s287.photobucket.com/albums/ll156/snarky_in_act/Brown%20skies%20over%20Canberra/

to see the progression of the dust across canberra, check out http://www.actewagl.com.au/webcam.aspx

great, and I’m riding up to Sydney after work tonight too. Hopefully it’ll rain and freshen the air up a bit for me. It wasn’t very nice out at lunchtime 🙁

eerie….

Ruby Wednesday12:53 pm 22 Sep 09

From the BOM weather warning page: “Strong to gale force westerly winds, averaging over 65 km/h with gusts in excess of 100 km/h, are expected near and following the front. The strong winds will generate widespread raised dust.”

either that or from north east SA.. my car was mud this morning along with every second or third car on the way to work this morning lol
carlovers would be loving this

I watched this monster storm sweep in from adelaide yesterday, growing in intensity until it was a big band of lightning heading our way.

The lightning tracker was a good show, but as it had picked up speed over mildura, mates in wagga were reporting dust much earlier than we got it, and they had warned me to get all windows closed and the cars undercover – it was going to be a big one.

The storm last night was meh, could have been bigger. But the dust started rolling in at about 9.00pm, turning the sky an eerie yellow, which intensified this morning. The lightning was just big flashes, so i couldn’t get any decent shots of it. The dust will be the thousands of hectares out towards mildura that are bone dry. it has just shifted it here to us. It is definitely dust, if it was snmoke, you would be able to smell it long before it got here…

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