Heading home from my walk this morning, I thought breakfast had come to find me.

What looked like a perfect, ripe mango was perched between the bars of the Horizon building’s carpark on Premier Lane.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I picked it up for closer inspection. While the skin was not damaged, it was, unfortunately, totally smooshed. I placed it back where I found it.

There’s been a lot of talk about the El Nino bringing a nasty bushfire season this summer, and looking outside this morning you could be forgiven for thinking the city is on fire. Except you can taste the dust.

That’s the view up William Street to the Coke sign in Kings Cross.

There’s an orange fog draped around the city. As you can see, visibility’s extremely low, the ferries have been cancelled.

That’s the Horizon building wrapped in dust. Meteorologists say it won’t clear until this afternoon.

UPDATE: According to the SMH, flights at Sydney airport are delayed due to “strong winds and dust haze,” citybound lanes on the M5 have been closed because of dust in the tunnel. The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning across the state as a result of widespread damaging winds, which were expected to average over 65km/h, but gusted above 100km/h.

This picture was taken from the fourth floor of the new wing at the Australian Museum, which we visited last weekend.

And this one is from the top of William Street two Sundays ago, just before a massive storm broke.