As bushfires continue to rage in nearly every corner of Australia, an entirely different sort of nightmare has afflicted the outback town of Mildura in the state of Victoria.
On Thursday, just as the sun was reaching its peak, hot, high and heavy winds in the north-west of the state of Victoria were doing the same.
Amid 40-degree heat (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and warnings of disastrous wildfires, a red "wall of dust" barrelled down on the rural city and swallowed it whole.
Australia: historical: a dust storm approaching Mildura in May 2019 • πΉ via Charlie Bucket pic.twitter.com/fA5MJrWJb2
— redball (@redball2) November 21, 2019
I was there....Mildura dust storm 2019 pic.twitter.com/p1dbsMAX08
— MummaTails (@MummaTails) May 7, 2019
Soon enough, the sky began to glow orange, and the whirling dust and grit grew so thick, it settled like a fiery fog on the city's residents, gathering in their eyes and mouths when they ventured out in the 40 kilometre/hour winds (24 mph).
As winds began to shift, the Bureau of Meteorology in Victoria reported an 8 degree temperature drop in 30 minutes. Nevertheless, the storm remained so dense, visibility at the airport fell from 4 km to just less than 500 metres (540 yards).
The skies turned orange over Mildura, Victoria, as a dust storm swept through the area on Nov. 21. https://t.co/oUCXPcYWK5 pic.twitter.com/a2qlf7cnrD
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) November 21, 2019
Just another day in Mildura #Drought #windndust pic.twitter.com/8E8krcdFGg
— Jayson Butcher (@jayson_butcher) November 21, 2019
A senior forecaster for the bureau, Tom Delamotte, told 7 News Australia that dust storms are not uncommon in Mildura, and given how hot and dry the region has been, this wasn't entirely unexpected.
"Anytime that we have had windy conditions over the past month or two they have seen dust storms," Delamotte says, "and given that today is very windy we are seeing quite a lot of dust picked up in the air."
Skies turned an eerie shade of orange as Mildura in southeast Australia was blanketed by a dust storm today. 68 mph winds whipped up dust in the drought-stricken region of Victoria, where power to more than 100,000 homes was knocked out after tree branches fell on the cables. pic.twitter.com/LxWPsIb9pp
— BBC Weather (@bbcweather) November 21, 2019
This is my reality today, another dust storm in Mildura, and a fire on our outskirts pic.twitter.com/yP5jUxI2K6
— π§Narelle Hahn-Smithπ¦π―#LoudAustralian (@AuntyRelle) November 21, 2019
Even still, the frequency of these storms rings of a bigger issue. As climate change drives ever hotter and drier weather in the great south land, residents are having to get used to recurrent storms just like this one.
Mildura local Sophie Appleby told The Guardian she's now learned that the worst has arrived when the birds stop singing.
"I have been here for 10 years and have never experienced anything like this," Appleby says.
"We used to have a dust storm a year, this is now a weekly basis. At its worst I couldn't see across the road. This time the heat, because it is 40 °C, coupled with the dust just made it unliveable. You couldn't go outside."
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2019-11-22 00:40:50Z
CBMiYWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNjaWVuY2VhbGVydC5jb20vYS1yZWQtd2FsbC1vZi1hcG9jYWx5cHRpYy1kdXN0LXN3YWxsb3dzLWFuLW91dGJhY2stdG93bi1pbi1hdXN0cmFsaWHSAWVodHRwczovL3d3dy5zY2llbmNlYWxlcnQuY29tL2EtcmVkLXdhbGwtb2YtYXBvY2FseXB0aWMtZHVzdC1zd2FsbG93cy1hbi1vdXRiYWNrLXRvd24taW4tYXVzdHJhbGlhL2FtcA
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