27 September 2009
Welcome to Mars! … I mean, Syndey
Posted by Ryan Anderson
Last week a dust storm swept its way from the Australian outback and blanketed Sydney with orange dust. The dust storm was pretty large for Earth: 500km x 1000 km, and unusual in that it managed to reach Sydney instead of petering out in the outback. The Big Picture has a great series of photos of the storm, many of which look remarkably martian (if you ignore the water and trees and people …). I can’t help imagining these photos as reports from martian colonists weathering a storm that lasts for months instead of just a day and covers the entire planet, not just a small patch.
What storm… It could be on Mars, Tatooine or any desert world.
Holy typo, Batman, check your spelling in the title.
Thanks, fixed it!
Great link Ryan – loved the time lapse pics from clear to dusty to clear. Will be sending the link to some family members who live on the E Coast.
It’s likely that most of the dust came from the lake Eyre basin. But I bet the degraded Murray Darling Basin areas added their fair share. It’s good – especially for people ‘isolated’ in cities – to be reminded of the awesome unstoppable power when natures stirs, even slightly, from expected norms.
And hey, when we get dust storms around here (Alice Springs – Central Australia) they don’t rate a mention….. so we might as well be on Mars!!
Really enjoy checking out your blog from time to time – and I do have a few good dust storm yarns but too long to get into them here!!
Hugh.