Being from Illinois and having spent most of my life in highly vegetated areas, my experience with dust storms was limited – until recently.
Bizarrely enough, Alice Springs didn’t actually experience the dust storm. The storm occurred several hundreds of miles to the west in the Gibson Desert. Fine dust particles were drawn in to the upper atmosphere and carried eastward. The dust clouds that reached Alice Springs were mind boggling; I can’t even imagine what the actual storm was like. I flew back into the Alice the day the dust arrived. Sitting in the aisle seat, reading a book, listening to my IPod; I hadn’t been paying any attention to the views. As the plane descended and the pilot made the usual announcement, I was shocked to hear that visibility was only a quarter of a mile. Although that’s not “fly into the side of a mountain conditions” it is a drastic change from the usual 20 -30 mile visibility. Exiting the plane my eyes began to burn and it hit me that I couldn’t see the end of the runway . Before getting to the terminal building my nose was getting gritty and I wanted a shower.
Here are a couple of side-by-side comparisons of Alice with and without dust.
These are the exact same scenes photgraphed 2 weeks apart.
After about a week of gritty air the wind kicked in and brought in a front that dropped torrential amounts of rain. For the first time in 16 months, I saw the Todd River flow. It actually happened twice in two weeks. One more time and I’ll be considered a local – YEAH! – I think?
The Todd flowing is quite an event. Tourists and locals’ gather on the banks to watch the water go by.
No matter how dirty the water, kids just can help themselves. They are drawn to the only running water for nearly 1000 miles. These poor little kids almost never get to play in the mud!
After stepping in mud while snapping pictures, I even joined them to wash my feet off.
Despite all the rain, we’re still at only 7.7 inches for the year; 6 of those came in last 2 weeks of November. We’re still behind the average annual rain fall of 11 inches. It’s amazing to see the desert turn green and grass to spring up from bare earth. The local cattle producers are doing happy dances and there are happy Herefords to be found. If there is a down side, it’s for those of us who like the dry desert climate. With moisture comes HUMIDITY and when combines with 90+ degree days it gets a bit sticky. Oh well – it will be dry again soon and back up to 40 degrees C. That’s 105 for you yanks that would join the rest of the world in metric system.
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