Plan B Forum

Quite a sand storm going on down under...

Click on the pic...



P.S. I know it's not anywhere near you.... yet!!!

Beautiful pictures. They've had a couple of those in Ariz. in the past year or so.


The (former) worst ecological disaster in American History.



A bumpersticker which started appearing on SUVs in Marin > 6 years ago:

"I'm changing the climate, ask me how!"



yrs,
rubato

Nice one Joe, thanks for posting.

We got a dust storm here in Canberra in 2009.

The first city to be affected was Broken Hill, which was 'blacked out' at about 3:30 pm on 22 September 2009. At least one mine was shut down. It was also witnessed in Cowra. The storm blew across Canberra and the surrounding region by midday on 22 September 2009, before being washed away by overnight rain, the heaviest rainfall over Canberra in months.

It was reported that the dust set off smoke alarms across the state and prompted increased demand for emergency services. Asthma sufferers were hospitalised. Rain was also reported to have resulted, with cricket ball-sized hailstones falling.

The dust storm also reached the north coast of NSW on the morning of 23 September 2009. Coffs Harbour was affected by 7 am. At Coffs Harbour Airport visibility was down to 500 metres by 9 am and the airport remained closed until 10:30am. Grafton and the Clarence Valley were affected by 8:30 am. It caused flight delays at Ballina airport and flight cancellations for most of the day at Lismore airport with visibility at 700 metres. A local school rugby union carnival was also called off

Dear god, so bad the cancelled they rugby?!?!?!?

We may never see anything as impressive as the natures beer glass in Joe's initial picture, but we will be suffering the fall out for weeks with a thin film of red dust coating everything outside.

we had that all summer long, in a huge drought here.

I have a problem with this...

How can you have a dust storm right next to the ocean...(or at least up against a large placid body of water...as appears to be the case in that picture...)



I'm no meteorologist, but I believe sandstorms tend to gather strength in the middle of dessert environments....

not along the coast line....

Lord Jim wrote:I have a problem with this...

How can you have a dust storm right next to the ocean...(or at least up against a large placid body of water...as appears to be the case in that picture...)

I'm no meteorologist, but I believe sandstorms tend to gather strength in the middle of dessert environments....

not along the coast line....

If you click on the picture in my first post and watch the video you will see that the sandstorm was indeed on the coastline.

Things are quite different down under. Even their drains run backward.

Even their drains run backward.

Urban legend, if there is a difference it is due to construction and not the Coriolis Effect...

I don't care whether it's true or not.

If I want to believe it I will.

I was looking for a world map showing the locations of haboobs in recent years. No luck. Although there is a grocery called "haboob" in Jordan and several people have invented a drink called a "haboob" in Arizona.

For many years they have detected silt originating in Africa falling on the Americas and we get dust from the Gobi sometimes as well. So I was hoping to be able to see a global pattern.


There was some general information avail. which is fairly interesting. Apparently a Haboob can occur anywhere you have both a large thunderstorm collapsing and a lot of loose silt, as you might see in a desert or after a drought (like what happened in the dust bowl).

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/0 ... x-arizona/





According to this small haboobs are 'fairly common' around Lubbock Texas.
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2011/1 ... ock-texas/

But this was not a small one:




Those nice people at the USGS have a few words as well:

"...ARIZONA – A dust storm that rolled across the Arizona desert on Tuesday, October 4, 2011, effectively blinded motorists, leading to a large string of motor vehicle crashes, multiple injuries, and at least one death. Both this storm and another storm that passed through Phoenix on July 5, 2011, carried large quantities of airborne particulates, caused considerable property damage, and potential harm to human health.

USGS and partner science show that there are many causes of dust storms, also known as haboobs. Two contributing factors are low vegetation cover and disturbance to soil surfaces.

"Accelerated rates of dust emission have important implications for natural systems and human well-being, so developing a better understanding of how climate and land-use change may affect arid landscapes is an important and emerging area of research," said Seth Munson, a USGS ecologist based in Denver. He continued and said, "our results from long-term monitoring of climate and vegetation on public land in the southwestern United States suggest that years with low precipitation and high temperatures are related to low plant cover, which can accelerate the likelihood of dust production, especially on disturbed soil surfaces."

Vegetation contributes to ecological integrity. The presence of plants reduces soil erosion and dust storms, because it keeps the soil intact, reduces wind momentum, and traps moving soil particles (see figure below). In spaces between the plants, many undisturbed desert soils are naturally armored by hardened physical and biological crusts.

Low vegetation cover can especially be a problem in drought years in abandoned agricultural fields, which are generally dominated by annual plants. This means that the consequences of dust storms, including motor vehicle crashes, are high in a drought year and low in years with more precipitation.

Similarly, in places where land-use activities destroy or reduce soil crusts and weaken soil stability, experts know to assume higher dust storm activity than in places where soils are left undisturbed.

Future climate scenarios predict that drought conditions will worsen, and therefore more dust storms are likely. Nevertheless, site restoration and reduced disturbance can mitigate some of the factors that promote dust emission. The USGS and land managers are working together to better understand the causes and sources of dust storm activity in the southwestern United States. "



http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.as ... 6&from=rss




yrs,
rubato

Dear god, so bad the cancelled they rugby?!?!?!?

Well they could have cancelled cricket, but no one would have noticed.

You kidding? How could they not notice something exiting happening for a change?

They slept right through it. Cricket does that to people.

Sleep, dust storm, wake up, shake it off, start watching/drinking again.
Not a bad life.