A massive plume of Saharan dust is covering the Caribbean as it makes its way toward to the United States, where it is expected to impact the Gulf region and other areas.
Dust was covering Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and other parts of the region on Tuesday, according to CBS Miami’s NEXT Weather radar. The plume was forecast to move northwest and reach Florida mid-week, then hit other states including Georgia, the Carolinas, Texas and Louisiana by Friday.
A dust plume from Africa already made its way to Florida over the weekend, CBS Orlando affiliate WKMG reported. Radar showed dust lingering over the state on Monday.
By mid-week, a larger plume will be over Florida, affecting air quality in the state. It will then flow northward, radar shows, more widely affecting southeastern U.S. states and the Gulf region.
Dust from Africa typically move across the Atlantic every year. It is known the Saharan Air Layer, and dust activity tends to peak from late June to the middle of August, meteorologist Jason Dunion told NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service in 2020. New dust plume “outbreaks” can be seen every few days and reach as far west as Texas.
As dust hits the U.S. this week, air quality is also being impacted in some states by wildfire smoke from Canada, where more than 100 fires were burning “out of control” on Tuesday, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center.
Leave a Reply