A large area of dust is heading across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa. The large dust cloud will have one big positive effect on the U.S. weather.
Here’s a look at the dust storm blowing westward off the Sahara Desert, and moving over the Atlantic Ocean.
Satellite on June 15, 2020 shows large area of dust moving west off Africa. (NOAA)
This is a fairly common occurrence. It seems to happen a few times a year. The more recent satellites allow us to see when these large clouds of dust form and blow over the Atlantic Ocean. The image above is from June 15, 2020 and shows a huge area of dust moving west across the Atlantic.
The dust signifies a very dry layer in the atmosphere, and hurricanes don’t like dry air. We have found that tropical weather systems, including hurricanes, have a tough time forming in a dry atmosphere. Any time we see one of these dust storms moving westward across the Atlantic, we know tropical systems will likely be suppressed during the dust passage. It even seems as though the dry effects may linger for a week or so after the dust cloud moves across the Atlantic.
An enhanced satellite image gives you a good perspective on how large the dust cloud was on June 15.
Same satellite imagery with a colorbank enhancement to see dust shows the dusty skies in yellow, orange and red. (NOAA)
While it is early in the hurricane season, we have already had three named storms. Now with the dust in the air, the tropics are going to quiet down. Here’s the five day forecast from the National Hurricane Center.
National Hurricane Center five day forecast for formation of tropical weather systems.
In the next five days there is only one area of interest for tropical systems, and it has less than a 40 percent chance of forming.
A tweet from Greg Diamond of The Weather Channel shows the expected movement of the dust cloud. Hit the play arrow on the video to see the movement.
In looking at several models, we may have a quiet tropical weather system pattern over the Atlantic for at least two weeks.
The dust is usually mostly dispersed by the time the cloud gets to the U.S. Southern states like Florida and Texas have reported great sunsets from the dust in the air. Here in Michigan we probably won’t have any sunrise and sunset beautification from the dust. We do get affected by the remnants of tropical systems. So a quiet tropical weather pattern does affect Michigan in some way.
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