www.abc.net.au . . .



I've never seen a dust storm before. I woke up at 8am this morning to see a yellow-orange sky and thought there must be a big fire that had sprung up overnight, but it turns out to be one of the worst dust storms on record for Sydney (apparently it hit Canberra yesterday afternoon).

I was planning on going out and running errands today, but I think I'll stay home - visibility sucks and the wind is so strong that everything is creaking!!! (plus one of my dogs is a bit freaked out by it)

How is everyone else coping?

Similar up here in Newcastle - I've got the day off work today and just went and dropped the kids off to school and there was a 2 inch thick layer of dust on the car: the poor windscreen wipers were struggling to move it all!

I'm currently sitting here at the computer with a lovely orange haze lighting everything in the house.

The dogs have retired to the shed to wait it out...sensible critters and I might take a leaf out of their book!

Yeah my dogs have both crawled inside as well. One keeps looking out the window as if to say "oh man, is it still yellow?"

I'm amazed that people are out and about today. It's the mid-sem break so a number of universities are meant to have graduation ceremonies today as well :S

What's driving like?

Wasn't too bad - funny, the dashboard on the car was bizarre: it's green and normally you don't see it during the date and it's quite muted even at night time, but it stuck out like a proverbial, I guess because of the orange backdrop.

Everyone's car lights really stood out also and looked ultra white.

I've noticed that there weren't anywhere near as many people out on the roads, though, so fortunately most people are being sensible and, if they don't need to go out, they're not.

They say it will be over by late this afternoon - I hope so. It almost has an apocolyptic feel to it *shudder*