Particles from the dust storm that engulfed parts of eastern Australia this week were detected 2,150 kilometres (1,335 miles) away across the Tasman Sea Friday, raining down on New Zealand.
Meteorologist Philip Duncan of the WeatherWatch website said orange dust falls had been reported in the North Island districts of Auckland, Northland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki.
Weather forecasters had tracked the dust storm in satellite images as it crossed the Tasman riding on a swirling low pressure system that brought bad weather to most of New Zealand.
It was clearly visible where it landed, particularly on car windows.
A Taranaki resident told the website the dust was so thick at the school where he worked it would not wash away in heavy showers.
"We have flat roofs on the buildings that are normally silver but this morning they were covered in a burnt orange very fine silt, that accumulated to approx two millimetres in places with the run off from the rain".
Tadhg O'Loingsigh, from the school of geography at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, said his team hoped to "fingerprint" the dust by analysing its minerals.
"If we can fingerprint it, we can trace where it came from," he said.
Although it is not unusual for smoke particles to cross the Tasman, meteorologists said the arrival of Australian dust was a rare occurrence.
At its peak in Sydney, the dust storm forced airlines to cancel several trans-Tasman flights from New Zealand.