Australian bushfire smoke turns New Zealand glaciers brown

Australian bushfire smoke turns New Zealand glaciers brown
A yellow light illuminates the sky as the sun sets over Akaroa Harbor as smoke from the Australian wildfires arrives on the east coast of the South Island, New Zealand, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020. (AP)
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Updated 02 January 2020
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Australian bushfire smoke turns New Zealand glaciers brown

Australian bushfire smoke turns New Zealand glaciers brown
  • The acrid-smelling smoke first appeared in the country early Wednesday
  • A Twitter user called Miss Roho tweeted: “We can actually smell the burning here in Christchurch.”

WELLINGTON: Smoke from Australia’s bushfires has created a haze across New Zealand thousands of kilometers away with normally white glaciers turning a shade of caramel, according to social media posts Thursday.

The acrid-smelling smoke first appeared in the country early Wednesday when in many areas the sun appeared as either a red or golden orb, depending on the thickness of the haze.

“Smoke which has traveled around 2,000km across the Tasman Sea can clearly be seen,” New Zealand’s official forecaster MetService tweeted.

“Visibility in the smoke haze is as low as 10km in the worst affected areas.”

A Twitter user called Miss Roho tweeted: “We can actually smell the burning here in Christchurch.”


Another woman, Rachel, posted a photo of the Franz Josef Glacier — more than 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) away — with its usual pristine white taking on a brown hue.

“Near Franz Josef glacier. The ‘caramelized’ snow is caused by dust from the bushfires. It was white yesterday,” she said in a post Wednesday.


Comedian Jemaine Clement posted a photo of a golden orb.

“All the way over in NZ the Australian bushfire smoke in the atmosphere giving us this strange sun,” he said.