Red Dawn: Sydney.

[weemadando]

Events around Australia today:

Dust-storms in NSW and QLD

Bushfires in QLD

Earthquakes in VIC

Torrential rain w/flooding and landslides in TAS

Anyone west of the Dividing Range got something besides dust to report?

[Lusankya]

There were hailstones the size of golfballs in SA a couple of days ago, as well as a lot of rain.

Here's a picture of UniSA after the rain:



There were laboratory animals in that building, but they couldn't get them all out in time, and they drowned.

[weemadando]

There were hailstones the size of golfballs in SA a couple of days ago, as well as a lot of rain.

Here's a picture of UniSA after the rain:

http://i34.tinypic.com/351y2if.jpg

There were laboratory animals in that building, but they couldn't get them all out in time, and they drowned.

I remember seeing that pic.

My big issue at the moment is both sides of the climate change debate screaming at the top of their voices about how "THIS IS ALL THE PROOF THAT YOU NEED THAT WE WERE RIGHT!"

[Lusankya]

How exactly is "crazy-ass wild weather over half a continent" supposed to be proof that climate change isn't real?

That said, on the climate change side of things, the fact that there are areas where formerly viable farms are becoming inviable solely due to rainfall changes is more conclusive evidence than one random bit of freakiness.

[Stofsk]

How exactly is "crazy-ass wild weather over half a continent" supposed to be proof that climate change isn't real?

That said, on the climate change side of things, the fact that there are areas where formerly viable farms are becoming inviable solely due to rainfall changes is more conclusive evidence than one random bit of freakiness.

They'll claim that the country has periodic droughts, so nothing new there.

[Lusankya]

How exactly is "crazy-ass wild weather over half a continent" supposed to be proof that climate change isn't real?

That said, on the climate change side of things, the fact that there are areas where formerly viable farms are becoming inviable solely due to rainfall changes is more conclusive evidence than one random bit of freakiness.

They'll claim that the country has periodic droughts, so nothing new there.

Except I'm thinking of Goyder's line, which can be determined independently of the current weather. But they probably don't even know what that is.

[Xon]

Anyone west of the Dividing Range got something besides dust to report?

With the last few months with very good rainfall, Perth dams are at 54% capacity, the highest they have been in 12 years.

[tim31]

What a priceless opportunity to film scenes for a Salvation War movie missed out on.

My first thought (honestly) was "it's a good time to be a window cleaner in Sydney."

Did you catch Hack? They sent a reporter down to an inner Sydney carwash after the dust had passed where the manager had called every member of the staff in to work.

[bobalot]

Some more railway photos.

[Kuja]

My god, that's like...looking at a photo of Mars or something. It's like something straight out of Total Recall. Almost unbelieveable that it could be just a normal photograph.

[VT-16]

Seen a lot of videos and photo collections up on Youtube, even the people filming pretend its Mars or something. I wasn't aware dust storms could produce such intense colors. They say it's the worst in over 70 years too, so there'd only be b&w photos from similar storms, I'd reckon.

[Lusankya]

We used to get dust storms every so often when I lived up in the Riverland. They looked pretty similar to these ones, in terms of colour.

Australian dust storms are probably a different colour from dust storms in most other countries, though, because we get red dirt all through the centre of the country.

[tim31]

It was easy enough to recognise Central in your first pics Bob but despite nagging familiarity, couldn't quite pick the station in the second series.

[Stark]

Americans need to remember that this shit moved something like 1500kms.

[tim31]

At no transportation or carbon emission cost whatsoever....

NOBODY TELL PENNY WONG.

[Stark]

The power of love nature is a curious thing.

We need some sat imagery in this thread. Preferrably with a caption like '42% of continent covered in space farts' or something.

[tim31]

BOM is useless because they only do superimposed radar and IR.

Surely something will turn up.

[FSTargetDrone]

Thank you, NASA :

A wall of dust stretched from northern Queensland to the southern tip of eastern Australia on the morning of September 23, 2009, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image. The dust is thick enough that the land beneath it is not visible. The storm, the worst in 70 years, led to canceled or delayed flights, traffic problems, and health issues, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News. The concentration of particles in the air reached 15,000 micrograms per cubic meter in New South Wales during the storm, said ABC News. A normal day sees a particle concentration 10-20 micrograms per cubic meter.

Strong winds blew the dust from the interior to more populated regions along the coast. In this image, the dust rises in plumes from point sources and concentrates in a wall along the front of the storm. The large image shows that some of the point sources are agricultural fields, recognizable by their rectangular shape. Australia has suffered from a multiple-year drought, and much of the dust is coming from fields that have not been planted because of the drought, said ABC News.

The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ full spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions.

The picture above is from 23 September. The below are from 24 September:





EDIT:

Be sure to look at the larger resolution images mentioned above, linked here.

Information about the TERRA satellite that took the photographs can be found here.

Terra
Terra is a multi-national, multi-disciplinary mission involving partnerships with the aerospace agencies of Canada and Japan. Managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the mission also receives key contributions from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Langley Research Center. Terra is an important part of NASA’s Science Mission, helping us better understand and protect our home planet.

[Stofsk]

Man, that really puts things into perspective doesn't it?

[Winston Blake]

This was shot in Broken Hill, at ~3pm the day before it hit Sydney.



Related photos from Google News. Mostly Sydney. Remember all these photos should have been broad daylight.

Didn't get as surreal as that where I was, but it was as dim and orange as sunset... when it was 11am. Dust storm in Sydney? Sucks to be them. Oh wait, what's that orangey band of cloud on the horizon...

Regarding the massive combo of mini natural disasters, it probably all stems from drought. (Either that or some poor museum worker knocked over a sacred Aboriginal artifact that was keeping Australia livable. OK, more livable.)

Dry conditions cause bushfires, and also cause low crop-planting and topsoil erosion, which causes dust storms, which gives rain nuclei and thus presumably helps cause the floods, landslides and hailstorms. As for the earthquakes - just a coincidence... or is it? *spooky music*

It's strange to hear talk of 'the new worst drought ever', when to me, there are no periodic droughts - I literally cannot remember when Australia wasn't in a drought. It goes back to when I was a little kid. Anyone under the age of 25 probably sees drought as normal.

[Stark]

That's what I thought too. Ganders told me about it in Sydney before I went to work, and I thought 'lol Sydney people suck'. Then it's outside my window, 1021km away, a few hours later.

[Winston Blake]

Looks like another one is coming - smaller though:

Link

Aussie may face second dust storm
4:15PM Friday Sep 25, 2009
Australia's eastern states could face another blanket of dust as a second storm threatens. Photo / Getty Images
Australia's eastern states could face another blanket of dust as a second storm threatens. Photo / Getty Images

* Photos Sydney's red haze (39 pics)
* Video Dust storm blankets parts of Australia (1:28)

Australia could be hit by a second dust storm, similar to that which turned the skies of Sydney and Brisbane red on Wednesday.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has warned that a front from South Australia could again cover the eastern states.

Bureau spokesman Sk Wong told news.com.au that flights have already been disrupted in the town of Broken Hill in outback New South Wales.

"Broken Hill is experiencing raised dust and strong gusty westerly winds. The conditions are quite similar to those of Wednesday's dust storm," he told the website.

"Although the winds aren't as strong, the dust storm could spread to Sydney and even as far as parts of Queensland.

"We are keeping a very close eye on the situation and will issue warnings if and when appropriate."

It's night now. I got back home about an hour ago, and noticed my black shorts had patterns of orange dust where the folds were.

I got my washing in and could have sworn it's starting to smell like chalkboard dusters again. Could it be the first one lingering on?

If the second hits overnight then YAY red dawn for Brisbane.

[Winston Blake]

For perspective for Americans, Canadians, and Britons: New South Wales has an area of about 810e3 km^2.

The side edge is cut off in this picture, so you're looking at maybe 700e3 ~ 750e3 km^2.

Area of:
Texas - 696e3 km^2
Ontario - 1e6 km^2
Entire U.K. - 245e3 km^2.

[FSTargetDrone]

Frightfully sorry, I forgot to include the link to the collection of all of the recent photos of Australia (dust storms and fires) taken by TERRA (the collection goes back to 2001).

Here is another pair, taken from 12 September:



Here is the second image which is too wide for the thread.

For perspective for Americans, Canadians, and Britons: New South Wales has an area of about 810e3 km^2.

The side edge is cut off in this picture, so you're looking at maybe 700e3 ~ 750e3 km^2.

Area of:
Texas - 696e3 km^2
Ontario - 1e6 km^2
Entire U.K. - 245e3 km^2.

Further, note that in all the TERRA images shown on this page, 1 pixel = 2 km.

ADDENDUM: Also, for clarity's sake, some of the photographs are also taken by AQUA.