A week or to ago, Canberra was hit with a dust storm. It came in really quickly – at least the visible dust did. My eyes started reacting before I could see anything. It coated everything in a thick red layer – carried in with strong winds (up to 90km/hr or 56 miles/hr) from the drought stricken land west of us.
Below are photos from the day. It did get worse than the last photo, but by that stage my asthma was not happy so I didn’t want to go outside to get another photo.
The first photo was how most of the day was. You can see the dust starting to build in the second (Black Mountain Tower – visible in the first photo sticking up on the horizon can no longer be seen), and by the third photo visibility is starting to be significantly affected.
Luckily for us, by the next morning the winds had eased and the skies cleared, although it took a good week for my eyes and lungs to settle.
February 22, 2019 at 11:43 pm
Oh wow! I’m glad you’re ok!!
I lived through dust winds while I was living in Korea. Not storms like this but they would call it dirty air. The yellow dust from the deserts in China would blow down. I followed a twitter account that gave the air quality count every day (sometimes multiple times) and on bad days I wouldn’t even leave my house unless I was going to work. I should have worn a mask but I didn’t. I think it’s affected my lungs now lol
February 23, 2019 at 6:11 pm
Ugh that sounds worse than anything I went through, GF.
February 23, 2019 at 11:52 pm
It’s in the summertime too so you want to be out and exploring and doing touristy things but you just stay inside with your AC on haha!! They go through it every year. And it lasts for about a month. Like not every day is a stay inside day, but depending on the heat and pollution and wind, you have to be very careful.
February 23, 2019 at 4:39 am
That is dramatic. I have a dust storm in one of my books. I’ve never been in one but reading accounts, I describe it pretty much as what you see here. It’s frightening, isn’t it?
February 23, 2019 at 6:15 pm
They’re nasty. Mostly because you can taste the dust as you breathe and you know that isn’t good. It’s also terrible for the land the dust has come from as it means the topsoil is being stripped from the ground.
February 23, 2019 at 5:54 am
Yikes. That’s awful. I hope you don’t get another one of those.
February 23, 2019 at 6:16 pm
They aren’t fun! As Australia is mostly desert and a pretty dry land unfortunately it happens more than you want.
February 24, 2019 at 6:52 pm
Dear me, Canberra is more dramatic than I thought! I remember a sandstorm in Arad when I was living there – I ran inside! It was unsafe to hang around outside to look at it.
March 1, 2019 at 11:11 pm
We’ve had a few dust storms in the nearly 6 years we’ve lived in Canberra (mind you, we had them in Qld as well). They issue warnings for those like me with asthma to go inside and close windows and doors. We have air con but that brings the dust in too so it can be a bit of a balance between heat and dust.