Saharan dust cloud may come to Michigan, likely to be dampened by rain
By this point, I’m sure you’ve heard that there is a large plume of Saharan Dust from the African continent that has traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and is having significant impacts on the daylight and air quality in the Caribbean. Now, particles of dust from the Saharan Desert in Africa may make it to Michigan.
Hazy/dusty skies have been reported from Puerto Rico to Cuba, and is expected along the Gulf Coast and the southeast United States Thursday through next week.
A very small concentration of this dust may edge into southern southeast Michigan by Saturday afternoon. Given that we’re forecasting showers and thunderstorms overnight Friday into Saturday morning, we’re anticipating that most of the Saharan dust should be washed out of our atmosphere by the rain, so we’re not expecting much in the way of impacts locally.
If you suffer from respiratory issues; however, you may want to limit your time outside Saturday afternoon just to be on the safe side.
This plume of Saharan dust has been thrust into the atmosphere by thunderstorms over Africa and has traveled along the Northeasterly Trade Winds of the Atlantic Ocean to North America. This is not an unusual occurrence. In fact, dust is thrust into the atmosphere by storms every day and is carried by the winds to various locations all over the world all the time.
When creating a long-range forecast for the Atlantic hurricane season, meteorologists will look at the “NASA Dust Extinction Aerosol Optical Thickness” forecast (…basically a forecast showing where dust is in the air and how concentrated it is) to determine how active an upcoming hurricane season will be. Typically, when there is lots of dry dust over the Atlantic Ocean and in the Caribbean, it acts to suppress tropical development.
What makes this occurrence unique is the amount of dust thrust into the atmosphere. Given the high concentration of this dust, it has blocked out the sun in many parts of the Caribbean and may act to block the sun in parts of the Gulf Coast over the next week or so.
One neat feature of this dust is it creates vibrant, glowing sunrises and sunsets. So if you’re looking for something to do this weekend, our sunset on Saturday could be a wee-bit more pretty with perhaps a soft glow.