Day of heat, dust and fire

IT WAS a day of heat, dust and fire in the Darling Downs yesterday.

A large dust cloud engulfed parts of the Downs and western Queensland regions, with visibility down to 1km in parts.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Lachlan Stoney said the dust was caused by a trough moving east across Australia.

“There were very windy conditions along with that trough,” Mr Stoney said.

“It’s windy enough that the trough is picking up dust from inland Australia and transporting it to the coast.

“It’s all connected with the big front that has gone through Victoria and Tasmania in the last day or so. We’re getting the top end of it with the dry winding change coming through Queensland.”

Mr Stoney said it was set to remain dusty into today.

“(We expected) a bit more dust overnight, so there will be some around (today),” he said.

“It will be a similar kind of thickness, but might dissipate during the day.”

Mr Stoney said the mercury reached a high of 38 degrees in Toowoomba yesterday.

“All those ingredients cause very dangerous fire conditions,” he said.

A large bushfire in Girraween National Park continued to get worse yesterday, with residents from Eukey told to prepare to leave their homes.

Firefighters were working to contain the fire at time of print.

Mr Stoney said temperatures would cool down from tomorrow.

“Instead of air coming from hot inland areas it will swing around and come from south east,” he said.

“We’ll have a much cooler air mass coming in from over the ocean.”

It is expected to reach a top of 30 degrees today, before dropping to a top of 28 degrees tomorrow.

Overnight temperatures will reach 20 degrees today, before dropping to 18 degrees tomorrow.

There is a 30 per cent chance of 3mm of rain today.