Melbourne Is Copping A Belting From Smoke Haze Today & The Pics Are Bonkers

Areas of Melbourne are currently experiencing air quality that’s comfortably in the “hazardous” range, and a thick blanket of smoke haze has virtually erased the city skyline.

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A shade over a month after bushfire smoke drifted over Sydney, setting off fire alarms in train stations and prompting snap climate protests across the city, Melbourne has finally copped the full force of the bushfire after-effects, with a blanket of smoke dropping across the city overnight, leading to a morning of rough lungs and a virtually invisible city.

While the air quality in the city is lingering in “very unhealthy” levels according to Air Quality Index readings, out in Box Hill in the city’s east, hazardous readings are being reported, with air quality sitting around 6 times above ordinarily safe pollutant levels.

Across social media, punters have been posting photos of the haze sitting across the Melbourne CBD, which is casting an eerie burnt grey hue on what should otherwise be a fairly glorious summer’s day.

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The smoke has, understandably, thrown various plans across the city into chaos. Not least of which includes the Australian Open, which has been forced to scuttle planned practice sessions and tournament qualifying matchups scheduled for today.

Questions are now being asked as to how any lingering smoke may affect the tournament proper, which is scheduled to begin next Monday.

The Bureau of Meteorology asserts that the smoke haze will begin to clear across western and central parts of the state tomorrow afternoon, however it will not clear from Melbourne and the bulk of the state until later tomorrow night.

Stay safe and keep honking that Ventolin puffer, pals.

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