SMOKE HAZE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 10, 13 January 1939, Page 11

SMOKE HAZE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, January 12,

Dull, cloudy weather with an unusual orange-yellow light experienced at Auckland during the day is presumed to have been caused by smoke from Australian bush fires which has drifted across the Tasman Sea.

The westerly disturbances ruling at present have evidently carried the smoke across the ocean, forming a thick haze in the sky. This phenomenon was experienced some years ago when the Commonwealth Meteorologist said that smoke could travel further than to New Zealand from Victoria. A smoke haze was also reported from Whangarei.

It is by no means rare for smoke from Australian bush fires to be blown across the Tasman Sea and to affect the atmosphere in New Zealand, and on occasions dust has travelled all the way across, too. The effect is generally noticeable as a haze in the upper atmosphere, giving a lurid tinge to sunrises and sunsets. Haze observed at the present time may or may not have come from Australia. The smoke from the bush fires in Hawke'f Bay is quite capable of causing similar effects.