Plume from Lithgow bushfire stretching across Sydney

[atkinsonr]

Here's the view looking North from the south side of Port Hacking, just now. The smoke is from Lithgow - it's a big fire!

Please play it safe anyone who's near the fires today.

(Taken with an iphone 4S using panoramic, then colour corrected, denoised and sharpened in lightroom).

rich

[atkinsonr]

You can see it on the BOM radar.

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

We just drove from Ourimbah to Southern Sydney. It looked like the end of the world.

Good luck and take care to anyone there.

[mental4astro]

Good thread to start, Rich. I hope you don't mind others adding their experiences and pictures here too.

Plume totally consumed my sky in Maroubra. The sun turned blood red. You can see a sunspot on the sun too!

[rogerco]

Of note to the Katoomba airfield mob. A fire started at Mt York and has now crossed the Darling Causeway and Railway line at Mt Victoria and is just about to enter the Grose Valley west of Blackheath.

I think smoke is going to be an issue for a week or so. :(

[sheeny]

I could see the plume yesterday arvo on the way home from work on the horizon, making its own cumulus. Not the biggest I've seen from here but its up there. The fire front this morning apparently stretches 30k x 8 k from Marangaroo to Bilpin.

I started watching the RFS incident map page yesterday. It was scary to see how many fires developed all across the state yesterday.

Al.

[multiweb]

That Lithgow fire as stretched overnight and shows as covering a huge area towards richmond. If the wind changes that's going to make a huge front. That's scary.

[gregbradley]

I was at Springwood yesterday afternoon around 4pm. It looked like doomsday. Black clouds of billowing smoke like a giant thunderstorm.

Never seen bushfire smoke so black - a dark purple grey brown.

Greg.

[mithrandir]

RFS has it getting towards 25000 hectares burnt by this morning. They won't want the wind to switch to anything from the north or west.

[multiweb]

The band is clearly visible on today's sat map (http://realtime2.bsch.au.com/vis_sat2.html?region=sydney&loop=no&images=&allday=&start=&stop=) from West to East. Unfortunately the wind shift forecast to date is for N/NE. That's the worst case scenario. It's going to blow on it at a right angle and could bring it all down south along its whole width.

[Ric]

Scary stuff indeed.
To all those in the area affected, stay safe.