The Melbourne dust-storm of February 1983

In 1982-83, El Niño brought exceptionally dry conditions to almost all of eastern Australia, and in Victoria’s Mallee and northern Wimmera 1982 was the driest or second driest year on record. As vegetation dried off late in 1982, the topsoil was loosened, ready to be blown away by any reasonably strong wind. By late summer there had already been numerous small dust-storms in northwestern Victoria.

Late on the morning of 8 February 1983 a strong, but dry, cold front began crossing Victoria, preceded by hot, gusty northerly winds. The loose topsoil in the Mallee and Wimmera was quickly picked up by the wind, and as the front moved east, the soil collected into a large cloud oriented along the line of a cool change. At Horsham, in western Victoria, raised dust could be seen by 11am; by noon it had obscured the sky.

In Melbourne, the temperature rose quickly as the north wind strengthened, and by 2:35pm it had reached 43.2°C, a record February maximum. A short time later, a spectacular reddish-brown cloud could be seen advancing on the city, reaching Melbourne just before 3pm. It was accompanied by a rapid temperature drop, and a squally wind change strong enough to uproot trees and unroof about 50 houses. Visibility plunged to100 metres, and according to witnesses “everything went black” as the storm struck. The worst of the dust-storm was over by 4pm, when the wind-speed dropped rapidly.

The dramatic dust-storm of 8 February, 1983 over Melbourne, Victoria.

At its height, the dust-storm extended across the entire width of Victoria, and was many kilometres across. The dust-cloud was some 320m deep when it struck Melbourne, but in other areas extended thousands of metres into the atmosphere. It was estimated that about 50,000 tonnes of topsoil were stripped from the Mallee (approximately 1,000 tonnes of it being dumped on the city), leaving the ground bare, and exacerbating the effects of the drought. Open water channels in the northwest were clogged with sand and dirt. The combined effect of drought and dust-storm inflicted damage on the land that, according to the then President of the Victorian Farmers and Graziers’ Association, would take up to 10 years and tens of millions of dollars to repair.

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