New dust storm sweeps across NSW

BRISBANE - Another dust storm has blown across New South Wales and Queensland, creating haze in Sydney and Brisbane and troubling drought-hit western graziers.

In Sydney, northwesterly winds brought fine dust from NSW's far west and beyond.

"It wasn't anything in the magnitude that we saw a couple of weeks ago, it was just a little bit hazy," Bureau of Meteorology severe weather forecaster Jake Phillips told AAP.

"A lot of people would have noticed it when they first got up this morning, if they got up around sunrise.

"But it didn't have the same orangey glow (as the September storm)."

The dust was first reported around the far western townships of Broken Hill, Wilcannia and White Cliffs on Monday and it made its way to the coast overnight.

Mr Phillips said the dust storm was moving northeast through parts of the Hunter Valley and onto the state's mid-north coast.

He said the recent dust storms had been aided by very dry conditions in the western region of the state.

North to northwesterly winds created a light haze in Brisbane.

But in western Queensland, residents already hit by two dust storms in a fortnight were again cleaning up.

Quilpie Shire mayor David Edwards said it was the worst dust storm he'd seen in 40 years.

"On the stations they've just finished cleaning all their houses out and we just got another one," he said.

Mr Edwards said visibility was reduced to 200 metres as 50km/h to 60km/h winds blew through.

"I just talked to a property owner who had three troughs with stock hanging around looking for a drink, and they're all chock full of sand," he said.

"He had to go and shovel them all out."

Two-thirds of NSW and about a third of Queensland remains in drought.

Mr Edwards said southwest Queensland was so gripped by drought there was no ground cover to hold the soil, and winds were whipping up the dust storms.

He predicted more dust storms but was hoping for rain at Christmas.

- AAP