Location: Australia
The Brickfielder is a strong, hot, dry and dusty wind in southern Australia. The Brickfielder usually occurs during summer and is mainly affecting southeast Australia's states of
Victoria and New South Wales. The Brickfielder is associated with the passage of a frontal zone of a low pressure. Preceding the passage of the front tropical, hot, dry north-westerly desert air from the interior of Australia is carrying clouds of dust and bringing sudden
hot spells, often exceeding 38C (100F), to areas which normally have a much milder climate. The temperature might jump up 15 to 20 °C within hours.
After the front has passed, temperatur
es
will drop dramatically again and the now cold winds are veering to more south, south-westerly directions, originating from polar air masses and still blowing quite strong, often with gusts reaching gale force. The passing of the cold-front itself is often associated with violent thunderstorms even triggereing tornadoes. This wind now is called a Southerly Buster, the uneven brother of the Brickfielder.
For example, on
January 14, 2001 temperatures in Sydney reached 34C (93F), with NE winds and dropped to 23C (73F) the very next day, veering to SE.
The hot northerly wind blew across the Brickfields, formerly so called, a district of Sydney and carried clouds of reddish dust from the brickworks over the nascent city - thus the name: Brickfielder. However, another - agricultural - explanation comes from the hot and dry character of the northerly wind itself, turning the surface of the already dry soil hard as bricks. Therefore, by confusion, every dry, hot wind from the north might be called a Brickfielder today. The Brickfielder is related to the Argentinian Zonda wind
