If you live in Sydney or Brisbane -- today you are in a dust storm.The outback has come to town in trillions of bits and pieces. Here in suburban Brisbane the sky turned red a half hour ago and I'm sitting in a orange haze . I can feel the grit under the mouse and my glasses are veiled with dust.
This is sub tropical Brisbane -- not the tinder drying south during the height of Summer. And it is only September!
So you have to go listen to Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads (below) to get the social measure of these storms.
There is also an anecdote I marvel at which is sure to put the grit between your teeth. During the Federation Drought(s) (and the Australian east coast is not currently officially in drought) -- between 1896 and 1902 -- the snow covered peaks on the South Island of New Zealand were stained red from Australian dust that had ben blown across the Tasman.
So all that dust now -- blowing east or south east past your nose when not going up it -- is Australia heading out to sea. (Photo above is DeeWhy this morning a Sydney beach suburb) No doubt taking tonnes of superphosphate back to the islands from whence it originally came.
(Stay where you were Nauru. The bird shit is coming back home.)
And that dust is topsoil where all the stuff in way of farming goodness is supposed to be located.
As for the meteorological significance of such a storm as this -- the onward rush of Climate Change is really beginning to look like a Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse type scenario.
I'll see you in Hell...just outside my door.
