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Australian smoke causing haze in New Zealand

Ben Domensino, Thursday December 5, 2019 - 10:37 AEDT

Satellite images showed bushfire smoke stretching from Australia to New Zealand on Thursday.

At 9am on Thursday, there were 98 bush and grass fires burning across eastern NSW, with almost half of these fires uncontained at the time. So far this season, more than two million hectares of land has been scorched across the state.

These fires have been ejecting masses of smoke and ash into the atmosphere for a number of months. At times, these plumes of smoke drifted thousands of kilometres over the Pacific Ocean, reaching places like New Zealand and New Caledonia.

This week, persistent westerly winds have allowed a large mass of smoke to drift across the Tasman Sea, where it could be seen passing over New Zealand's North Island on Thursday.

Image: Satellite image shows smoke streatching from eastern Australia to New Zealand on Thursday morning.

According to New Zealand's Met Service, the smoke could be seen as a haze in many of the country's northern regions on Thursday morning.

A surge of fresh to strong westerly winds will cause fires to flare up over parts of eastern NSW on Thursday. As a result, severe fire danger ratings have been issued for seven of the state's fire areas stretching from the Hunter down to the Victorian border.

Visit https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me for the latest information on bushfires in NSW.

- Weatherzone

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