Sydney red dust due to strong winds following the hottest August on record

SHOOT: What few people seem to realise is if you have these sorts of extreme temperatures now, those records can conceivably be broken for the next 30 years at least. Some places can theoretically become unlivable due to either dust, or heat, or drought etc, setting forth human migrations to areas that are more livable, which is likely to create greater tensions not only between people, but people and natural resources and people and animals and still viable ecological systems.

clipped from news.yahoo.com SYDNEY (AFP) – Sydney was again bathed in an eerie glow Saturday as dust from Australia's red desert centre settled over the city for the second time this week. Satellite pictures showed a band of dust about 200 kilometres (125 miles) wide, sweeping from central Australia towards the east coast, with visibility in Sydney limited to five kilometres, said forecaster Barry Hanstrum. "We've got an area of widespread dust but not as thick as it was on Wednesday," said Hanstrum, referring to the freak red storm that choked Sydney earlier this week. Strong winds following the hottest August on record sucked up dust from a decade-long drought in what experts said was the biggest such incident to hit Sydney since 1942. "Standing outside my place now looking at the clock tower, it's about half a kilometre away. You can just see it, with the thickness of it, you can just see the town lights," said Young man BJ Wyse.