View down my street. Street lights are still on at 9:30

Woke up this morning to what I thought was a brilliant sunrise creating an orange glow around the curtains, but when I opened them I found it was a massive DUST STORM!! It was really bizzare to look at, as the wind is really cold but the only time I have ever seen the sky this colour was through the bushfires. At first it was hard to tell if there was a heavy miscoloured fog, or if a bushfire had been lit overnight with the lightning from last nights storm.

Dust Stom in Bolwarra Heights

Its amazing that this much dust can travel through the air to create such a blanket over the state. All over the news there are stories about Sydney and the dust down there. Ferries have been cancelled and international flights have been diverted to Brisbane. Never seen a dust storm like this

Sun Trying to shing through the Dust Storm

Theres so much dust that the sun cant even shine through properly. That little dot is the sun at 9:30 this morning.

View of the Dust Storm from my garage

I am now waiting to see how long it takes for all the greenies to get on the global warming band wagon. There will be the apocolyptic naysayers saying the end is nigh too but I just say its a really cool dust storm. Western NSW is so dry now from a low rainfall winter, that there is no ground coverage to hold the dirt in place. Once the winds picked up there was no chance for the dust to stay on the ground.

Hopefully we will never see a dust storm this bad again, well not in my lifetime anyway!

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Belmore Bridge Maitland

As I write this article all flood warnings for Maitland and the Hunter Valley have been cancelled. Yesterday it was a different story though with the Hunter, Paterson and Williams Rivers all rising fast thanks to the massive drenching we got this week.

Our thoughts go out to all the victims caught up in the Bellingen floods as We escaped by the skin of our teeth, floodwaters lapped at the top of levee banks at some of the lower areas around Maitland.

While I was at work I managed to stop at a few places as I travelled around to get a few pics just to show people how high the waters had risen. Thefollowing photos were taken on the morning of 2nd April, 2009 and the Rivers still rose a little bit more afterwards.

At Hinton where the River usually breaks first, the water was just lapping at the top of the levee bank. It wouldnt have taken much more water upstream to make it go over

At Raymond Terrace where Williams River merges with the Hunter River the Boat ramp and park just inside the levee bank went under overnight.

The Dunmore Bridge at Woodville has just had repairs begun and all the workers were madly scrambling to get everything to high ground. When I drove past there were a few site sheds that had wet feet. The grass in the foreground is the levee bank that I am standing on, and didnt have too much more to go before it spilled over

Just out of Woodville this lake is usually a grassy low lying area. Whenever it rains everything jsut flows into it and becomes a lake

Taken from the Dungog side of Paterson looking towards the township, the Paterson River had engulfed these river flats and created this very serene lake. You can just see the rail bridge in the distance. It looks perfect as a skiing spot, just watchout for floating trees.

Taken from underneath the Paterson rail bridge

Tucker Park in Paterson, has now become Tucker Lake

Looking from the roadside towards historic Tocal Homestead just outside Paterson. Usually there is just a small dam in front of the house that has now become a lake. If the waters spill over from the Paterson River then this lake will rise up quite a bit more.

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