American Airlines Virtual

"The 2009 Australian dust storm, also known as the Eastern Australian dust storm, was a dust storm that swept across the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland from 22 to 24 September 2009. The capital, Canberra, experienced the dust storm on 22 September,and on 23 September the storm reached Sydney and Brisbane. Some of the thousands of tons of dirt and soil lifted in the dust storm were dumped in Sydney Harbour and the Tasman Sea. On 23 September, the dust plume measured more than 500 kilometres (310 mi) in width and 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) in length and covered dozens of towns and cities in two states.By 24 September, analysis using MODIS at NASA measured the distance from the northern edge at Cape York to the southern edge of the plume to be 3,450 km. While the cloud was visible from space, on the ground the intense red-orange colour and drop in temperature drew comparisons with nuclear winter, Armageddon, and the planet Mars."