{"id":451033,"date":"2026-02-01T05:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T05:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451033\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T05:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T05:53:16","slug":"one-minute-it-was-daylight-the-next-minute-it-was-black-massive-dust-storm-rolls-through-outback-nsw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451033\/","title":{"rendered":"‘One minute it was daylight, the next minute it was black’ \u2014 massive dust storm rolls through outback NSW"},"content":{"rendered":"

After months of hot and dry conditions, including a record-breaking heatwave, the largest dust storm in years has rolled through outback NSW.<\/p>\n

The wall of orange and red earth charged into Broken Hill, and continued east for more than 100 kilometres.<\/p>\n

It is a stark sign of how dry the region has been since the beginning of August, with less than 55 millimetres of rain recorded in the city.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A woman walks across the unrecognisable main street in Broken Hill. (ABC News: Bill Ormonde)<\/p>\n

It follows the prolonged heatwave across the state’s far west, which saw Broken Hill, Ivanhoe, Pooncarie, Fowlers Gap and White Cliffs all set various records for heat.<\/p>\n

“White Cliffs on Saturday saw its highest temperature on record\u2026 48.9 degrees,” said Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jonathan How.<\/p>\n

“We’ve actually never seen eight days in a row above 40 degrees (in Broken Hill).”<\/p>\n

As thunderstorms developed late in the afternoon, the winds carried the large front of dust hundreds of kilometres.<\/p>\n

“The topsoil has pretty much completely dried out and with those strong winds yesterday, in a really dry atmosphere, it did mean dust was able to be kicked up into the atmosphere and hover for quite some time,” said Mr How.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Drivers were forced to turn on their lights to navigate the roads. (ABC News: BIll Ormonde)<\/p>\n

‘Just layers of dirt’<\/p>\n

As the rolling red wave passed Broken Hill, it headed to Kars Station, 70km to the east.<\/p>\n

“I thought we might escape it, but we certainly didn’t,” said resident Jacinta Cullen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a decade living at Kars, Ms Cullen could not recall being on the receiving end of a dust storm quite like this.<\/p>\n

“One minute it was daylight, the next minute it was black,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Jacinta Cullen’s homestead during the dust storm. (Supplied: Jacinta Cullen)<\/p>\n

“The aftermath is never pretty. The garden is just brown, the inside of the house is fairly brown as well,” she said.<\/p>\n

“There’s just layers of dirt, almost sand on everything in the house.<\/p>\n

“Lost a bit of panelling off some shed roofs, and a couple of tanks have blown around.”<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People gathered at vantage points to watch the dust storm roll in.\u00a0 (ABC News: Bill Ormonde)<\/p>\n

Dry conditions to persist<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for pastoralists in the region, the dry conditions are predicted to continue, according to the BOM.<\/p>\n

“We are expecting to see these dry conditions continue until certainly autumn, but it doesn’t mean it will be completely without rainfall,” said Jonathan How.<\/p>\n

“We will still see isolated showers and storms.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After months of hot and dry conditions, including a record-breaking heatwave, the largest dust storm in years has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[233114,233115,233116,43,44,233117,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-451033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-broken-hill-dust-storm","tag-dust-storm","tag-duststorm","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-outback-nsw","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}