The plume is easy to track on satellite imagery where viewers can animate their journey to view the historical dust concentration as a giant brown mass spanning 5,000 miles.
As of Friday morning, the dust covered “the Sunshine State”, making it more like the “Misty State”.
“Saharan dust is definitely in place over Florida. There are no clouds or fog, just atmospheric dust that creates the haze. You can’t even see the horizon,” says CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller, who is in Flagler Beach.
Looking at before and after pictures of that part of Florida northeast of Orlando, you can see the difference dust can make on the horizon in Flagler.
An area of increased pressure over the southeast is allowing Saharan dust to enter the southeast over the weekend.
It will stretch from Texas to South Carolina and a slimmer amount could even go to the Midwest.
Forecast models show the highest dust concentrations affecting Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi on Friday.
However, the dust is likely to have some impact in the surrounding states, including Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and the Carolinas on Friday.
By Saturday, the dust is scattered throughout the eastern half of the United States. The highest concentration will remain in the south, but it should not be as strong as on Friday.
Images taken on Friday morning revealed the impact the dust was having across the south. From Mobile, Alabama, for example:
Then there is this one from Clear Lake Shores, Texas, showing the haze as the sun went down on Thursday:
The downside to dust is air quality.
“This Saharan dust has traveled a great distance and most of the larger particles have fallen on the way,” says CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. “What remains are the smaller PM2.5 dust particles and smaller ones. This type of contamination is more dangerous to the lungs than the larger particles.”
This plume of Saharan dust is historical
“It is definitely historical,” Olga Mayol-Bracero, a researcher at the University of Puerto Rico, told CNN Weather. “We knew we were going to be in an extraordinary situation.”
Many of his colleagues across the Caribbean said they have not seen such poor air quality conditions in their entire careers, he said.
Aerosols, measured in PM10, at the Mayol-Bracero research station in northeast Puerto Rico, have never reached the levels they have seen in recent days. Records at the station there date back 15 years.
The dust was so dense in Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean that it darkened the skies and reduced visibility to just a few miles.
While many people will find the Sahara dust column to be puzzling and even alarming, it is not really new. Scientists who study it call it the Saharan air layer or SAL and its effects on the development of hurricanes.
But scientists say this is historical due to the dense concentration of dust.
“While it is normal for dust from the Sahara to reach the United States every hurricane season, this event is unprecedented in thickness and coverage,” says Mauldin.
“Usually, by the time the Sahara dust has traveled so far, much of it has been dispersed and / or deposited in the ocean, so typically this long-range transportation to the Americas would involve much higher concentrations casualties, “Claire Ryder, NERC Independent Researcher at the University of Reading, told CNN Weather.
How the Saharan dust plume began
The initial dust outbreak was fueled by a few smaller storm systems over central and western Africa. Several of these thunderstorms caused large-scale downdrafts and haboobs, or dust storms, to appear. This led to a large amount of dust rising into the atmosphere from the Sahara, Ryder said.
At the same time as these smaller dust storms were occurring, the East African Jet – strong upper winds in the atmosphere that generally transport dust westward – was abnormally weak in June.
This means that a more significant amount of dust could accumulate than usual near the west coast of Africa. It could then be transported west in a very dense cloud when the plane accelerates again.
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