Dust Storm

Growing up in the UK I used to read stories about dust storms in deserts in Boys Own type comics.  It all seemed rather romantic.  When I emigrated I was doing some field interviewing near Port Pirie in South Australia and the sky was full of murky crud: I was very disappointed to discover that was an Australian dust storm - not all romantic.

About 35 years later I was touristising in Dubai and the strong winds kicked up the sand from the offshore building sites.  It did at least get the temperature down to about 38oC, but not romantic.

Today we have (so far) 32oC and 50+kph winds.  Its been very dry so not surprising that we're back into dust storm territory.  Here are couple of images taken from our deck: I might go out and get some more - putting a lot of 20c pieces in my pockets to keep me on the ground!).

I walked up to Whiskers Creek Rd - quite far enough (300m each way) in this rubbish , thank you.  Here is looking West towards Taliesin.
 And this is East towards Balcombe Hill.
The foliage is bending more than somewhat: even my badly sited Weather Station has recorded a gust of 43kph.  A friend with a better exposed WS (about 3.3km away) has recorded a gust of 72 96kph!
Its still not romantic: perhaps we need a few camels?

Another participant in a weather forum has opined that what we had today was dust haze.  He reckons this is a dust storm (Melbourne 1983).  His point has some substance to it - like the cloud!

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