Dust storms may make it across the Tasman to New Zealand. Sydney flights cancelled.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/866 ... ed-in-dust

What pictures! But, I imagine that a great many people, even if for only a moment, were freaked out. It looks like something from another planet.

Freaked out, coughing, sneezing and sweating. I closed up the flat and I could still smell it. The light was golden, the sky orange except for a small circle of blue around the sun, which looked blue/white. It was hot and humid, but I couldn't open a window (no air conditioning ). The handiman mowing the lawn outside was orange from all the dust sticking to his sweaty skin. I'm glad I didn't have to go out in it.

How long did it last for? Is there more on the way or was this a brief episode?

At sunrise everything was blood red , there was no sky , only a red haze .
the lights were filtered bluer than normal ,the taste of fine dust is like burn earth

very freaky , very "end of days "

Here in Brisbane, there was a fine haze when I woke up yesterday morning. Just enough to blur the edges of the buildings I could see across the valley, make the sky look pale dirty-blue and to start me sneezing 'n wheezing. Then around midday I was reading and I suddenly noticed the light was fading and changing colour and I pulled open the curtain and the sky was orange/brown and I couldn't see more than a hundred metres or so into the valley (I'm on the side of a hill). It gradually cleared as the afternoon went on and was almost totally gone by the next morning. The sky's nice and clear now with just a hint of dust on the horizon.

The weather people say there's a good chance of another dust-storm later this week or weekend. I suppose we should be grateful that most of the Lake Eyre catchment is still moist and covered with vegetation. In another few months it will have dried out totally and all that fresh dust will be available, but by then the weather systems that generate these storms should have moved too far south to bother us, until next winter/spring.

I suspect the finer stuff is passing over NZ in the jetstream as the temperatures nosedived overnight with snow on the mountains and rain all day around here. Clearly your unfolding climate highjinks is going to have a knock on effect on our climate.

Blue skies in Brisbane today.

The good news, meager as it might be, is that the dust that makes it far out to sea will act as fertilizer for the plankton and help build up the fish population in area's not fished.

There are few unfished zones around here. The factory ships see to that. Dont believe the hype you read.