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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A large cloud of mud from the Sahara Desert blanketed many of the Caribbean on Monday within the greatest occasion of its form this yr because it heads towards the United States.
The cloud prolonged some 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from Jamaica to effectively previous Barbados within the japanese Caribbean, and a few 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) from the Turks and Caicos Islands within the northern Caribbean down south to Trinidad and Tobago.
“It’s very impressive,” stated Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane knowledgeable with AccuWeather.
The hazy skies unleashed sneezes, coughs and watery eyes throughout the Caribbean, with native forecasters warning that these with allergy symptoms, bronchial asthma and different circumstances ought to stay indoors or put on face masks if open air.
The mud focus was excessive, at .55 aerosol optical depth, the very best quantity to date this yr, stated Yidiana Zayas, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The aerosol optical depth measures how a lot direct daylight is prevented from reaching the bottom by particles, in response to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The plume is anticipated to hit Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi late this week and into the weekend, DaSilva stated.
However, plumes normally lose most of their focus within the japanese Caribbean, he famous.
“Those islands tend to see more of an impact, more of a concentration where it can actually block out the sun a little bit at times,” he stated.
The dry and dusty air often known as the Saharan Air Layer varieties over the Sahara Desert in Africa and strikes west throughout the Atlantic Ocean beginning round April till about October, in response to NOAA. It additionally prevents tropical waves from forming in the course of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs June 1 to Nov. 30.
June and July normally have the very best mud focus on common, with plumes touring wherever from 5,000 ft to twenty,000 ft above the bottom, DaSilva stated.
In June 2020, a record-breaking cloud of Sahara mud smothered the Caribbean. The dimension and focus of the plume hadn’t been seen in half a century, prompting forecasters to nickname it the “Godzilla dust cloud.”
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