I am really surprised this is first mention of this here on DPC. Was pretty big news on this side of the world. Especially where I am at because yesterday a whole bunch of flights had to return to Wellington and Auckland that were in route to Sydney. Kind of made a mess of the airport here for a couple of hours my wifes cousin had his flight take off time delayed twice because of flights that had to come back for unscheduled landing. Alot of flights were scrubbed yesterday.
I woke up yesterday any my whole apartment was glowing RED! I didn't think to take any photos as it was 6am but I know there's groups on Flickr with loads, just search for Red Sydney.
It turned to yellow by about 8am and by about 1pm it was pretty much gone, but there was a film of red dust over everything!
What is happening there guys? What a hell is that?
Red outback grit, the dust storm came from gale force winds in the country's interior whipping up a bunch of dust and chucking it into the air. Worst dust storm in 70 years. The whole thing made possible by the worst drought on record.
Within two hours of hearing the news of the dust over Sydney, we received the dust storm as well. We are about 1500km (give or take) North West of Sydney. Visibility, which is usually to the horizon dropped to 500 meters. We drove 300kms in the storm yesterday, for a funeral today and then watched the limited visibility drop to 50 meters last night over the beach. Today we drove back through it again. The Black Sahara looked terrible and I feel like death warmed up, with a sandpaper throat and headaches. I went to use my ventolin last night, only to find it empty and no scripts with me. The visibility wasn't too bad today, although Blackdown Tablelands, which stands tall and proud for many kilometers, was invisible to the eye.
I didn't even take any photos....I just want my bed.
I didn't even take any photos....I just want my bed.
I remember seeing a full page photo of yours, of a young girl in a dust storm (Kita, perhaps, a few years back in a UK photography magazine - am sure I have still got it some where.
Nothing cool like that EVER happens here.
Portland is FUCKING boring!
Come on down to Eugene. The whole valley is full of smoke from the fires around here. There's even ash falling like a very light snowfall. You can put on a red filter and it will be just like being in Australia right now.
I didn't even take any photos....I just want my bed.
I remember seeing a full page photo of yours, of a young girl in a dust storm (Kita, perhaps, a few years back in a UK photography magazine - am sure I have still got it some where.
Nothing cool like that EVER happens here.
Portland is FUCKING boring!
Ever hear of a little incident called the Mount St. Helen's eruption? Of course you probably weren't even a gleam in your daddy's eye at the time, but it was kind of impressive. Enough so to make their little dust storm pale to insignificance. A few of us old-timers still talk about it now and then.
Personally, I much prefer boring. Maybe even "FUCKING boring!"
While I'm bringing up old shit, have you ever heard of an ancient Chinese curse that goes something like, "May you live in interesting times." There's a reason it's called a curse.
