How's the weather?

[Brooke]

That is amazing, Fp! It looks very pretty, but is it hard to breathe? Thanks for showing us.

[ticky]

Julie, I dont know how far from Broken Hill you are, My friend Colleen says Sydney is getting better now but she posted this video from Broken Hill. It's like, Old Testament stuff. Pretty Scary!!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrlD22HwPvI&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

either way, I hope you all are alright!!

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Those are amazing pictures and video. Thanks for posting them everyone. FP, I hope everything is going okay and your family and friends are safe and sound.

[TimothyBFan]

That just looks so scary and I can't even imagine actually being there and seeing that happen. Make me glad I live in Indiana where the only time we get blinded is in the winter and it's called "a white out" from the snow. At least it's clean. YUCK!!!

[Freypower]

Thanks for the comments. As Koala said it was the first storm of this time since 1939 and the first in my lifetime. Broken Hill is in the far west of New South Wales (I visited there in 1984), a long way from me, but the storm covered the whole of South Australia, NSW and southern Queensland. It cleared reasonably quickly but there was a large amount of dust. (It was hardly a 'crisis' as the hysterical TV news called it). I stayed at home and didn't go out and at my daughter's school they stayed inside. Today is a beautiful, clear spring day. I actually honestly feel that at least I had something different to contribute for a change.

Edit: It was difficult for people who were in the city to breath - a lot of people were wearing face masks. Out here in the suburbs I coughed a couple of times but that was all. My husband said that despite the reduced visibility on his way to work cars were still speeding past him!

[ticky]

That sounds soo much like how it was back in 1980 when Mt. St. Helens erupted. I can remember hearing it was blowing up on the TV so we hopped in the car and drove up to Skyline blvd, top of the west hills, and watched the side fall off the mountain! it was incredible. The next day we were covered with grey dust. By the weekend we had about 4 inches of it on everything. People in the cities were having to wear masks and most of them just didnt go outside. We had to wear scarves over our nose and mouths when we went to school and they brought out the snow plows to clear the roads, still, it reminded me of what it's like to drive through high water on the roads, with a wake of dust that rose up about 4 feet when you drove through it, but then you had the cloud of dust to contend with. We had 4 garbage cans filled with volcanic dust. After the big blow up, there were about half a dozen small ones and each time, we got dusted. Anyway, your dust storm just brought a lot of that back to mind. I feel for ya'll

[sodascouts]

Wow. It does seem kind of Old-Testament. Glad you're OK, FP.

[Peekaboo]

I read about that dust storm this morning. Incredible. Those pictures were amazing and that video that Ticky posted gave me chills.

[Brooke]

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Edit: My husband said that despite the reduced visibility on his way to work cars were still speeding past him!

Can you believe the way people drive in bad weather?! Reminds me of our trip to Colorado a couple years ago and the roads were covered with ice. We were driving about 45 mph (on the edge of our seats) and trucks, cars, and semis passed us like it was a normal clear day!

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Well, we are getting pounded by the Atlantic Coast tropical storm. Not sure how much longer I'll have power cause I've already had several power surges this morning, but I've got my fingers crossed. The biggest problem is that normally in a tropical storm, the weather is warm. However, it's in the 40's here (low 50's predicted for tomorrow), so if we lose power for several days, of course, we won't have heat. Oh well, we'll deal.