Orange you glad I woke up early to take these photos?

Gale force winds, an eerie orange glow and a gritty atmosphere you can touch and taste. Sydney's turned sepia this morning.

We've woken to extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime weather conditions. A fierce dust storm has blown un during the night bringing red dirt from hundreds of kilometres away in the inland.

In an effort to bring you the news as it happens I snapped these photos out of my bedroom windows (through the insect-screens).

Visibility on the roads is reduced to around 500 metres, a mere 2 metres on the harbour they say, and ferries have been cancelled.

The airport is diverting planes to other cities, athletics carnivals are cancelled and medical authorities are advising older folk, asthmatics and children under 5 to stay indoors.

I don't think I'll be hanging out the washing today. Or having my once-white car washed.

To make things even worse bright sparks have been phoning into breakfast radio with every pun imaginable.

Of course I'd never sink so low.