dust storm

[rescue5271]

With the country side a little green at the moment I came across a rather large size dust storm Friday(10/8) just west of Keith speed was reduced on the dukes hwy because of the dust.With both NSW and now QLD having some very early large grass and scrub fires and with fire restrictions already started in parts of NSW/QLD will we be heading down the same path?? The country side may be green but it is dry and after 3 days of strong winds it would not take much for a early session to be called for.

[Crank]

ive found these maps on the BOM website to be helpful

[Crank]

There is alot of useful info on that site.

Just looking through Adelaide's data for august....they have had 16.6mm of rain and 24mm of that evaporated!

Interesting to note in the last 1/2 month all soil dryness indicators have risen.


So it would seem although some of us are having reasonable rainfall we are losing quite a bit in evaporation

[Pipster]

Strong winds, particularly the northerly ones, we have been experiencing in the last few weeks is going to really force that evaporation....

Hopefully some more rain coming, although for many areas, at least for the next week, no major rains forecast   

Potentially, we could have an early bushfire season - but a lot can happen weather wise between now, and say, October, which could impact on any decision re changes to the fire danger season....

Pip

[Robert-Robert34]

Ditto pip it seems like were in the same pattern as last year  when we had that early fire season i got a bad feeling this season is gonna be busier than last season was