Sydney in Dust

[sam86]

Blimey. Just came across this. Looks mental!

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Desert dust storm chokes Sydney

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Sydney dust storm

Whilst I appreciate it's probably pretty horrible to live in, it looks amazing.

Apparently is was only for a morning/afternoon, but still.

Any of our Sydney based (or nearby) NSC users care to comment? Inside pictures?

 

[Marc]

what the f*** are those freaks doing at 12seconds in the first video link?! swimming on land or something?!

 

[Stumpy Tim]

Absolutely gutted I'm in Mumbai when this happened. My wife said they had to close the place where she worked as the sand had got into the Air Conditioning & was spewing sand all over the office. Quality

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

This happens all the time in Immingham when the wind is blowing from a particular direction and all the coal dust from the coalhills at the docks gets blown everywhere.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Did it blow in from a dusty spring field?

 

[Trufflehound]

Did it blow in from a dusty spring field?

No, it came from a sandy shore.

 

[countrygull]

No, it came from a sandy shore.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

No, it came from a sandy shore.

 

[D'Angelo Saxon]

Yeah, this was pretty freakin mental. Girlfriend woke me up yesterday morning to find the outside world looking like a scene from Total Recall. Everywhere was bathed in this freaky red light. It cleared by midday, but definitely a weird experience!

 

[The Maharajah of Sydney]

Woke up yesterday morning with the house bathed in an orange glow .
And , after opening the blinds felt like I'd been transported ( Wizard of Oz style )
to planet Mars . It was very surreal scene .
The ferries were cancelled , the airport shutdown and some road tunnels closed .
There was 15,000 times the normal level of pollutants in the air .
Every flat surface outside and also many internal areas have been covered in a very
fine layer of red dust . Even our cat is sporting a distinctive red tint on his white paws .
The duststorm blew in from Lake Eyre in South Australia about 2,000 km away .
It had been to Canberra before hitting Sydney then onto Brisbane . It was last spotted heading out across the Tasman Sea towards New Zealand .

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Have experienced something like this a couple of times in my life, once after a bushfire and the other time the dust blew in from up in the mallee district hundreds of kilometres away.

As someone else said it's a very surreal feeling to be in the middle of it, especially when all of the sun you can see is this small bright light piercing the red.

And to show the contrast in the nation, while Sydney was being coated in red dust down in Tasmania there was torrential rains and flash floods occuring.

 

[middletoenail]

My mate is staying in Sydney at the moment and this was his view at 7am from his balcony.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Middletoenail, you must have a bloody rich mate to be staying there.

My favourite element of this story was the Aussie woman who was interviewed on the BBC site and told them something along the lines of "It was like being on Mars", and then felt she had to clarify this by adding "although obviously I haven't been to Mars". Yeah, thanks for clearing that up, love

 

[middletoenail]

Middletoenail, you must have a bloody rich mate to be staying there.

My favourite element of this story was the Aussie woman who was interviewed on the BBC site and told them something along the lines of "It was like being on Mars", and then felt she had to clarify this by adding "although obviously I haven't been to Mars". Yeah, thanks for clearing that up, love

Haha he is far from rich, its a hotel and his employers are paying for it, £13k for 2 months..

 

[D'Angelo Saxon]

Lovely view over Lunar Park. Must be nice and quiet in the evenings...

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

That is surreal.

We have had similar things in the UK in the past where dust/sand from the Sahara is blown across Europe and which coats everything it touches. But not that thick or dramatic. The door-to-door duster sellers are going to coin it for a few weeks I suspect.