Will Kirby / CC
The Saharan Air Layer, when dust from the Saharan Desert in Africa gets kicked up and swept into the atmosphere, has descended on Louisiana.
State Climatologist Barry Keim says the dust can create some respiratory issues for more allergy prone people, but does come with some interesting optics…
“It causes very hazy conditions in the afternoon, so if you go out in the afternoon and look up in the sky, instead of seeing a nice clear blue sky, you see kind of a milky white situation.”
Louisiana sees about one to two SAL events a year.
While it may frustrate some allergy sufferers and create a somewhat strange milky white effect in otherwise blue skies, Keim says there is a beautiful side effect to the weather phenomena.
“It also causes very vibrant sunsets. The dust enhances the scattering of the red, orange, and yellow light, with those very very low sun angles at sunset and sunrise.”
The dust itself can be found about a mile up in the air and can stretch as far as four miles into the atmosphere. Keim says the massive blanket of dust has taken an epic journey to get here.
“It took a ten day journey across the Atlantic, into the Caribbean, and now it’s being funneled into the central Gulf Coast region, covering a span of about 5,000 miles.”
He adds the blanket should keep tropical activity at bay for the next week or so.
