Australia Weather News

A large dust storm tore through a Pilbara mining town in Western Australia late yesterday, astonishing onlookers.

Wind gusts of 83 kilometres an hour were recorded in Onslow, 1,400 kilometres north of Perth, as a thick layer of brown dust descended on the town.

Local photographer Michelle McKoy had been preparing to photograph birds and was caught off guard by the approaching storm. 

"Then I saw the big orange dust clouds, so of course, I came screaming inside, switched lenses for landscape, and took off out the door and even forgot to take my phone," she said.

"It had come over so fast that the whole town was just getting covered in flying dust."

She described the town as being covered in "nothing but brown" with low visibility.

"It almost had that sort of cyclonic feel about it," she said.

"The wind was so intense and the sand blasting that I just jumped straight back into the car.

"I had to use my foot and my arm to push open the car door."

An Onslow resident of only two years, she was exhilarated by the weather phenomenon. 

"People like me who aren't used to it are quite amazed by it.

"It's like the ice cream truck's coming when a storm comes or a cyclone. I don't get scared, I just get excited because I want to get out there with my camera."

A dry wet season

Meteorologist Jessica Lingard said the event was caused by large inland thunderstorms, which formed a "microburst", or a "downburst".

"If you think of a bucket of water, and you tip it up, all the air inside the thunderstorm comes rushing out underneath it, hits the ground and splashes out in all directions," she said.

She said the ground was particularly dusty in the Pilbara region due to rainfall totals well below average for this time of year.

Last year, similar conditions caused another large dust storm to develop in Onslow, which onlookers described as being like "Indiana Jones".

She said the microburst events were quite short-lived, with gusts returning to calm within an hour.