Apocalyptic dust storm rolls across Mildura

The clean-up continues in Mildura after a massive dust storm plunged the regional hub into darkness yesterday, with strong winds blowing the towering wall of dirt over the town. SEE THE PICTURES

Dramatic pictures have captured a dust tsunami smashing Mildura and plunging the city into an eerie darkness.

The thick wall of dust rolled through Mildura at 5pm on Tuesday, with strong winds and heavy dust blanketing the town.

APOCALYPTIC SCENES AS DUST STORM SWEEPS KERANG

DUST STORM IN MELBOURNE’S WEST

Visibility dropped to less than 50m with cars pulling off the road or slowing to crawl for safety.

Mildura airport was shut down for 60 minutes and one flight was forced to return shortly after takeoff.

A drone captured the moment the giant wave of dust hit Mildura. Picture: Brenton Love

A dust storm blows into Mildura. Picture: Glenn Milne

Mildura airport was shut down for 60 minutes as the dust storm passed over the City. Picture: Brenton Love

A “significant number” of fire alarms at homes and businesses were also falsely triggered by the dust storm, a CFA spokesman said.

BOM forecaster Steven McGibbony said yesterday’s storm was the result of a cold front moving across the northwest of the state.

“We’ve had relatively dry conditions for a period of time, causing a build up of dust and dirt on the ground,” Mr McGibbony said last night.

“(It’s) been a day of strong winds, which picked up all the dust and moved it across the northwest of Victoria.”

Impressive vision of the dust storm that moved through #Mildura airport at 5pm. Wind gusts reached 57 km/h in the storm, while #Walpeup had gusts to 87 km/h and #Hopetoun hit 85 km/h. A severe weather warning is current for the #Mallee: https://t.co/N1uhs307nn #VicWeather pic.twitter.com/5otLZEVeqG

— Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@BOM_Vic) May 7, 2019

Here’s the Dust Storm just before it hit Mildura #video pic.twitter.com/qzg6xAsmBr

— Sara J. White 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 (@CharlieBBucket) May 7, 2019

Might need to wash my car tomorrow lol pic.twitter.com/jQTFxUb5rZ

— Sara J. White 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 (@CharlieBBucket) May 7, 2019

Pitch black! Mildura @JaneBunn pic.twitter.com/c57aze5Shi

— Sara J. White 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 (@CharlieBBucket) May 7, 2019

He added: “The winds should ease off... and the rain moving through the northwest will help drag the dust out of the air.”

Strong winds reached gusts of up to 87kmh in nearby Walpeup and 85kmh in Hopetoun.

Mildura councillor Glenn Milne watched the dust storm roll over town and braced for the worst.

“I saw a huge black cloud on the horizon, and I just knew it was going to be really bad when it hit,” Mr Milne said

“It was this huge wall of thick dust, it sent the place completely dark for nearly half an hour, I could maybe see 50m in front of me with headlights on.”

Mildura blanketed in dust. Picture: Glenn Milne

A Twitter picture of a car trying to drive through the storm. Picture: Michael Moodie

“The air was thick with dust, and then the rain hit and it was like it was raining mud.”

“The air was pretty clear again by around 6.30pm.”

Local real estate agent Brenton Love was driving through town with his son Oliver when the storm hit.

“It was like armageddon,” Mr Love said. “This wall of darkness hit suddenly and with no warning.”

“The sky turned to red and then to black. You couldn’t see a thing.”

BOM senior forecaster Dean Stewart said the storm would head towards Melbourne but have little effect.

It’s beginning to lighten up pic.twitter.com/jucnOrHXJ9

— Sara J. White 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 (@CharlieBBucket) May 7, 2019

And so the clean up begins.

But this was 5:10pm in mildura, before everything went black with dust. I’ve grown up with Mallee Dust Storms, but I haven’t seen one like that since I was about 8. So glad my kids could experience one. Pretty insane. pic.twitter.com/iYoWv1j8Ts

— DMOORE1983 (@drm1983) May 7, 2019

The dust storm hitting Mildura airport today - thinking of all the farmers who had to endure this yesterday.
One of our Pinnaroo farmers joked that was probably his farm reaching Mildura! Let’s hope we get some rain this week to calm the soils. 🙏🙏🙏 pic.twitter.com/eW3RAOloNF

— Crop Smart (@Cropsmart) May 7, 2019

“There may be a little dust in the air, and with some rain headed our way there may be a few dirty cars in the morning, but that’s about it,” Mr Stewart said.

“The storm will continue to make its way towards the east towards Robinvale and Swan Hill.”

A Qantas spokesman confirmed that the flight was a Qantas service from Melbourne to Mildura, and that the airline was arranging to transport those on board to Mildura by bus on Tuesday night.

A Melbourne Airport spokesman confirmed that the flight was rerouted back to Melbourne, and landed safely.

[e-mail]

@soph_welsh