If the sky outside seems hazy and brown this weekend, you don’t need to get your eyes checked. It’s the result of tiny microscopic dust particles that blew all the way across the Atlantic from the Sahara Desert. Associate professor of coastal meteorology at LSU, Paul Miller, says dust plumes are a regular part of the Atlantic climate system.
“What is sort of exceptional is when a dust plume can sort of maintain itself all the way through the Carribbean into the Gulf of America and make its way into the southeast United States, which is what is happening here,” Miller said.
For most, the plume will be nothing more than a bizarre experience, but Miller says its arrival will bring poor air quality conditions, which can be harmful to certain individuals.
“There this natural sources of partculates in the atmosphere and so whenever those concentrations get pretty heavy that can start to trigger respiratory symptoms among people that suffer with athmsa or something like that,” Miller said.
It’s not all bad though, Miller says the plume can act as a temporary shield from intense storms and even hurricanes. The dust is brought across the Atlantic by hot, dry desert winds.
“So the dust tugs and twists tropical systems as they are trying to form, so we generally associate the presence of these dust outbreaks with poor conditions for tropical cyclone development,” Miller said.
Miller says weather systems off the coast of Florida should disperse the dust by Monday.
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