Today Project Survival Brisbane are writing to you from inside a giant dust cloud.
In fact, this cloud has covered part of the Australian Eastern Sea board for the last two days. Yes, that’s a dust storm two thousand kilometers long.
ABC Tracy Nearmy
To put that in perspective, Seattle to LA is 1539km, or thereabouts. Dust storms are not uncommon in Australia – we have them every year, but generally in the outback where soil is dry and loose and strong winds whip up giant storms on a regular basis. While these storms cause damage to property and hinder visibility, they are not unusual.
Storms and Storms
The storm hit the Capital yesterday, blanketing Canberra in a dusty haze and interrupting transport in the city. Canberrans were then treated to heavy rain storms overnight, while Sydney and NSW were thrashed with Hail stones the size of cricket balls and hundred kilometer winds. Despite the dust, the SES has received the greatest concentration of emergency calls from just north of Canberra, where last night’s hail storms caused severe property damage. Storms also hit north of Melbourne, prompting the Bureau of Met to issue flash flooding warnings for Victoria.
Crazy Haze
This morning Sydney-siders awoke to find visibility reduced and bright red haze covering their entire city. Surfers on Bondi plunged into the waves in an atmosphere not unlike water filled with orange food dye.
Brisbane firefighters have been fighting a string of fires to the west of the city for days, and were preparing for today’s dry conditions and gusty winds with water drops. With visibility reduced to under a kilometer in many places, firefighters are now having trouble seeing the fires they are fighting. The winds driving this storm are the same winds fanning the fires.
Sydney airport is redirecting traffic to Brisbane and Melbourne airports, ahead of predicted closures of Brisbane runways this afternoon. Virgin and Jetstar have advised people to reschedule all unnecessary travel.
“Normally when we go to a low-visibility operations it’s fog so it’s absolutely dead still, there’s no wind at all,’’ airport spokesman Michael Samaras was quoted in the Australian.
“This time we’ve got low vis but it’s not fog, it’s dust, as well as high winds.’’
The ABC has reported birds having trouble with the haze, with some “falling out of the sky”, and other contributors reporting dead animals in their back yard. In Tamworth, North East of Sydney, rain and dust and creating a rain of mud, making transport conditions treacherous.
The Construction, Energy and Mining unions have all closed work sites today because workers have been experiencing eye irritations and breathing difficulties.
Worst Storm in 70 Years
Dust storms of this size are unusual, especially in coastal Australia, where the majority of the population is situated. The Bureau of Met described the storm as the worst in 70 years, if not in the history of NSW.
“An event like this is extremely rare,” BOM Regional Director for NSW Barry Hanstrum said, speaking to the Australian; “It’s one of the worst, if not the worst.”
More unusual is the combination is dust and rain storms. Australians are, in recent years, certainly not strangers to strange weather. This year alone has Victoria and NSW have seen severe storms, floods, dust storms and of course, the Victorian Bushfires earlier this year. Queensland has weathered three of the worst flash floods in our history, the Gap cyclone and widespread severe flooding, dust storms and fires.
The BBC observed “it has been a difficult 24 hours for Australia, which has been hit by earthquakes, hail storms and bushfires”
Strong winds and further storms are expected over the next few days.
Climate Change and You
Scientists and naturalists are predicting that Australia, already one of the dryest, most inhospitable continents on earth, will be the earliest and hardest hit by changes in climate. With over 90% of our populations situated in low lying coastal cities, and currently in the throws of the worst recorded drought in our history, Australia has a lot to loose.
Climate change will likely see a shifting of weather patterns; a drying of various regions and a progression of existing weather patterns towards extremes.
The greatest problem with climate change is that we may not survive it, not that it is unnatural or that it is unprecedented – but that our populations as they are will have to shift and adapt radically, and many will die in the process. And of course it is not our species only that will be challenged – at worst predictions we can expect to see the extinction of thousands of creatures.
We are driving this cycle faster than it would have run without our input. We must now make an effort to slow it. For the sake of millions of nameless people you will never meet in India, the Pacific, and threatened regions the world over, and for the sake of all those creatures you met with Mr Attenborough when you were young.
In Australia, given our regularly severe existing weather pattern, how long can we really afford to wait?
Read more at The Guardian, The Australian, the ABC, the SMH, at The Age or on Twitter
Find pictures of the storm at the ABC
Also at the Red Sydney Project
Tom Coates on Flickr
