” HERE IT COMES “
Posted by mervfrench on January 30, 2011
We had a little dust storm and a bit of a blow yesterday in Northam and surrounds. Nothing really to do with Bianca but she probably set up a couple of conditions that triggered it.
We were without power for 22 hrs and it came back on this afternoon. I checked the radar and the BOM warnings so knew this was on it’s way but it was travelling at 90 km hr so it hit fairly quickly.
Lot of damaged around Northam and York and surrounds , roofs off, trees down, power lines down etc.
The thing that really got me was within minutes of it hitting we had a complete black out of the sun and I mean COMPLETE …. it went dark like midnight and it was amazing.
We had no damage at our place except a couple of branches down. I spent the morning at Hodgy’s helping him shift a rather large pine tree that came down in his yard and took out his patio ( he wanted a new one anyway !! ). He has a few shots of that that he’ll put up I’m sure.
Here’s a couple of shots and the last one is genuine , it really was that dark !!!
All these are straight from the camera no adjustment at all.
mervfrench PHOTOGRAPHY 
Jamie Nicolaou said
That’s some pretty impressive dust storms there. Just glad everyone is ok. I’ve seen that sort of thing in the Pilbara, pretty scary stuff.
mervfrench said
Yeah it was impressive Jamie, best one i’ve seen I think. Bloody wind was really roaring for a few minutes.
True North Mark said
Great shots and story there Mervy boy! Glad to here you and Pete are OK….I was wondering how you were fairing!
mervfrench said
Thanks Mark.
We’re fine but a lot of others have got a few problems to contend with.
davidsobik said
OMG Merv, thats pretty wild! We had stuff all in Albany, in fact I went to the rifle range for a shoot and it was just bloody humid!
Cheers and hope your sensor is clean!!
mervfrench said
Cheers Dave.
The sensor is about the only thing that was clean. When the power came back this arvo there was a bit of dust to vacuum up.
muzz said
Glad that all is OK – you did well to snap these few shots off when you did – the S90?).
Brett morgan said
Bloody hell that’s a dust storm indeed Merv I to have seen some woppas up in the pilbara but not quiet as bad as this one.
Looks like mother nature is kicking us in the guts for something in Australia everyone is copping it eh.
Peta said
Wow that’s one impressive dust storm, I bet you had a lot of cleaning to do.
mervfrench said
Actually it wasn’t to bad Peta. We quickly put towels along the bottom of the doors so just a vacuum and dust afterwards and it was ok.
Stephen Williams said
pretty incredible indeed Merv. I woulda been standing there jaw dropping lol. sure puts the dust storms we’ve been getting lately to shame, although I think the one I saw just out of Newman last week would have been similar on the front end- I just managed to get there just in time to see the ass end 😦 lol
mervfrench said
Yeah it was impressive Stephen, it all happened pretty quickly.
Tony Middleton said
Great to read you escaped any damage the Merv.
Spectacular images mate – well done ! Classical dust storm kicked up from outflow winds there – the tones and contrasts are wicked. It’s quite an impressive trough through WA atm
Stephen – surely you scored something tonight ?!?!?
cheers,
mervfrench said
Tony I was watching the sky change to the classic dark blue storm look so i checked the BOM site and they had a warning that the storm front was coming at 90kph. We went outside and next thing the dust wave appeared and it hit us a couple of minutes later. Running around trying to put a couple outdoor chairs away and then trying to find the camera it all happened in a flash really.
Mike Fletcher said
Did you get it on video mate?
Nup!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
mervfrench said
Mate I was lucky to get these couple of shots it all happened so quick. Seeing as I’ve never even turned the video function on this wasn’t the time to be looking for menus and buttons.
I must give the video a go some time, it doesn’t look that hard , seems any old hack can do it. 🙂
Jamie Paterson said
Hi Merv,
Been away and now I’m back. What a wicked shot. Mother Nature likes to let us know she is still in charge everynow and then I guess.
Jamie