Brickfielder

The Brickfielder is a hot and dry wind in the desert of Southern Australia that occurs in the summer season. It blows in the coastal regions of the south from the outback, where the sandy wastes, bare of vegetation in summer, are intensely heated by the sun. This hot wind blows strongly, often for several days at a time, defying all attempts to keep the dust down, and parching all vegetation. It is in one sense a healthy wind, as, being exceedingly dry and hot, it destroys many injurious germs. The northern brickfielder is almost invariably followed by a strong "southerly buster," cloudy and cool from the ocean. The two winds are due to the same cause, viz. a cyclonic system over the Australian Bight. These systems frequently extend inland as a narrow V-shaped depression (the apex northward), bringing the winds from the north on their eastern sides and from the south on their western. Hence as the narrow system passes eastward the wind suddenly changes from north to south, and the thermometer has been known to fall 15 °F (−9 °C) in twenty minutes.^[1]

The brickfielder precedes the passage of a frontal zone of a low pressure system passing by, and causes severe dust storms that often last for days and led to its naming as the winds blow up red brick dust. A more frequently used term for the winds is a "burster".

See also

• Sirocco
• Föhn

Notes

1.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Brickfielder". Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 521.

References

• Names of Winds
• Brickfielder on "Winds of the World"