A SPECTACULAR dust storm blanketed Tamworth on Thursday as gusty winds rolled in.
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Airspeed Aviation pilot Captain Pascal Cooney was flying from Dubbo to Tamworth when he captured the storm from above.
“I’ve never seen one quite like it,” he said.
“It’s so dry but I haven’t seen a dust storm this big, it just covered much of the city.”
Dozens of locals also flocked to the city’s lookout to see the windy weather event.
The NSW Environmental Protection Agency air quality index registered a spike in Tamworth's PM10 dust particles at 118 - almost double the city's reading only a few hours earlier - and warned people with heart or lung disease to limit exercising outdoors.
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It comes as locals dust off the jackets with a cold snap. Tamworth is forecast to hit just 15 degrees on Friday – about 10 degrees cooler than the maximum temperatures for much of the past week.
And the winter woolies will be needed after dark with lows of five degrees predicted.
The Bureau of Metorology is forecasting a partly cloudy day on Friday with westerly winds up to 20km an hour early in the morning and winds up to 40km as the day continues.
