UNCANNY WEATHER CONDITIONS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 12, 9 October 1928, Page 10

UNCANNY WEATHER CONDITIONS

AUSTRALIA’S “SUSPENDED DUST” PALL

PECULIAR LIGHT EFFECTS IN WELLINGTON

Yesterday Wellington was treated to meteorological conditions of a distinctly uncanny character. After a night of howling wind, with gusts that shook the houses and tested the fences, the day broke grey, drear, and tempestuous, as far away from blithe jocund spring as one'could well imagine it to be. The cable messages in yesterday’s “Dominion” reported Sydney as being under a pall of “suspended dust,” and that its general direction was toward New Zealand. Whether this dust could travel as far as New Zealand in the time or not has not been established, but the fact remained that between 9.30 a.m. and 11.30 a.m. the light from above hardly corresponded- with that which usually prevails in grey, murky weather. It was a dull, sickly, yellow light, not unlike the effect gained when one looks at the world through ambertinted glasses, and the only likely explanation for this effect offered was that it might be due to the action of the sun’s rays coming through a pall of the suspended dust referred to in the cable message. Curiously enough, as soon as rain fell the yellow tinge faded from the colour scheme. There was no doubt about the gale. This raged tumultuously throughout the day, reaching its maximum in a lively thunderstorm between 1.30 and 2 p.m. These dust storms are not uncommon in Australia at this season of the year. Cyclonic disturbances scour the red sand deserts of the interior and carry this fine red dust a thousand miles' toward the sea coast, and even out to sea, so the above theory as to the curious light effect noticed yesterday morning is not an impossible one. In Sydney the light effects are sometimes awe-inspiring, the atmosphere taking on orange and even deep red tints. Such storms are usually followed by rain, when the streets, gardens, houses, steamers, wharves, and everything exposed become spattered with red dust—part of the great Interior deserts north and west of Broken Hill and Bourke. When such storms are experienced in inland towns it is a case of closing down. Every shop closes its doors and puts up its shutters; the people retire indoors, and the dust flend is given the freedom of the city. At times the dust is so thick in Broken Hill that one cannot see half-way across Argent Street, and anyone who would attempt to move from place to place in such weather takes a risk of being hit with a flying sheet of iron, a hencoop, or a stray camel.

FALL OF RED DUST AT INVERCARGILL

By Telegraph.—Press Association Invercargill, October 8.

A peculiar phenomenon occurred over a large part of Southland on Saturday afternoon, w’hen a dull red glow was observed in the sky. In some places it became so dark at four o’clock that artificial light had to be used. On Sunday the footpaths, roads, and houses were found to be lightly coated with a red dust, and the motor-cars caught in the shower were spotted red. It is surmised that the visitation is due to big bush fires on the West Coast or to an eruption.