Sydney Duststorm No 2

Three days after the red dust storm we had a few weeks ago, we had a second – this time it was yellow, not as severe and was gone by 8.30am. But it did provide a very eerie atmosphere.

I almost missed seeing the sun!

You can get an idea of how hard the wind was blowing in the next photo – which was good – it was all clear by mid morning, but billions of tons of our soil had been dumped in the Pacific ocean and New Zealand gained some too!

Miss Dolce cat was most perturbed by my being out there in the weird light and wind.  She was crying from the upstairs balcony!  Poor baby.

You can see more Skywatch Friday photos here.

Sydney dust storm

Red sky in the morning…

We awoke to an amazing sight on Wednesday morning – the sky was red!  It was eerily luminous as the rising sun (which we didn’t see for quite a few more hours) was reflected off the red dust particles which had been blown in by gale force winds in the one-in-a-century dust storm.

Hopefully one-in-a-century…  increasingly common droughts and global warming mean they might become more frequesnt.

It was intensely red just after 6am (you can see the effect of the wind on the trees),

orange just before 7am

and yellow by mid morning (which I didn’t photograph as I was out and about by then).  Blue sky was visible in patches again by midday, thanks to the gale force winds which blew in the sand from Lake Eyre, half way across the continent, and then blew it out again, taking some of it as far as New Zealand.  By late afternoon it was gone.

The next morning there was a pair of goldfinches trying to get into our study window – perhaps blown in from the west as they were my first sighting in Breakfast Point, although they are recorded on the bird list for Sydney Olympic Park, and are probably quite common in various grasslands nearby.

The storms have been widespread – Cairns nearly 3000 kms away was affected.  We are expecting another one tomorrow morning but not as severe.   Poor Miss Dolce cat still has a red ruff.  She ventured outside yesterday (a day after the storm) and picked up the dust from garden vegetation.

More Skywatch pictures here.