Some people in Europe parked their vehicles outside overnight, hoping a cleansing downpour would save them a trip to the carwash. But the rains had the opposite effect. The reason? Dust from the Sahara Desert.
A squeeze play between zones of high and low pressure has slingshotted a conveyor belt of airborne desert dust northward. Ordinarily, what happens in the Sahara stays in the Sahara — but recent strong winds have picked up dust by the ton, transporting a grimy layer of sand all the way to the Arctic Circle.
The dust has trekked as far poleward as Scandinavia, and could be swept back toward Greenland in the next 72 hours. In the meantime, concentrations are impressive. If you took a one-yard by one-yard cube of dust out of the air over France Tuesday afternoon, it would contain nearly 3,000 milligrams of dust. That’s the weight of more than a penny.
Much of it is clouding over the upper atmosphere. That could transform the light into a diffuse amber glow over the United Kingdom Tuesday evening, and have a similar effect in Iceland tonight. Brilliant orange sunsets may be in the offing.
The United Kingdom Met Office writes that “Saharan dust is relatively common in the U.K.” They say it happens a few times a year when “big dust storms in the Sahara coincide with southerly wind patterns.”
