A wall of dust is making its way north through New South Wales, after blanketing Canberra earlier this afternoon, according to
WeatherZone.
It says the dust is being whipped up by strong winds ahead of a cold front crossing southeast Australia.
Gusts in excess of 90km/hr have been reported from the Snowy Mountains.
The dust is likely to reach Sydney over the next couple of hours, causing visibilities to drop.
Visibility readings of less than two kilometres were reported from Canberra and other locations in southeast New South Wales earlier in the afternoon.
"The front crossing southeast Australia today has been associated with particularly severe winds. Earlier this morning, wind gusts in excess of 130km/hr wreaked havoc across Victoria and Tasmania," WeatherZone meteorologist Matt Pearce said.
"The strong westerly winds ahead of the front have picked up large quantities of dust from southwest New South Wales, a region that has seen minimal rainfall in recent months."
It was a very warm day ahead of the front. Sydney reached a top of 29.3 degrees, the warmest day in April for three years.
"The winds will drop off rapidly overnight tonight as the cold front moves out into the Tasman Sea. After a couple of milder days, we will then enter a prolonged showery spell across eastern New South Wales from the weekend onwards," Mr Pearce said.
The dramatic weather comes as two cold fronts bear down upon southeast Australia, bringing damaging winds, rain and snow.
WeatherZone reports that the first cold front crossed western Victoria this morning, bringing winds in excess of 80km/h for exposed coastal or elevated regions.
As the front surged over Tasmania and Victoria it brought modest rainfall and some snowfalls on the Tasmanian highlands as the mercury plunged below zero.
Melbourne was today set to have a maximum temperature 10 degrees lower than yesterday, with under 10mm expected for most suburbs.
There will be little respite, with a second front set to move in over Thursday bringing further rainfall and damaging winds.
Winds and rain should ease off in time for the weekend, with temperatures expected to return to near average.
It follows wild and wet weather in NSW in recent days, with showers and thunderstorms on Monday bringing the heaviest rain in years to some western NSW towns.
Grenfell, just north of Young, was drenched with 63mm on Monday, their wettest day in six years and more rain then they normally receive in an entire month.
Coonamble was not far behind with 57mm, their wettest April day in over 100 years.
Young's 53mm was their heaviest fall in eight years for any month.
The rain was also heavy along parts of the coast with 75mm recorded at Sydney Airport, a 14-month high.
Unfortunately the heavy falls only reached a few pockets of drought stricken western NSW with most towns picking up less than 15mm.
A few showers and thunderstorms redeveloped across the state on Tuesday afternoon but by 4pm the top fall was just 16mm at Barraba.
By Wednesday most of the state's inland will return to a period of dry, mostly sunny weather.
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