Saharan Dust Cloud Heads for Florida

[Mike Peregrine]

A large cloud of dust is currently blowing across the Atlantic from the Sahara, which should make for some colorful sunsets over Florida during the coming week. Doesn't look like it will go any further north than Florida, but could possibly reach as far west as Texas. The leading edge of the cloud can be seen over the Atlantic on satellite, and it should reach FL in the Mon-Tue timeframe. It doesn't look dense enough to do anything more than make for some hazy skies ... and the sunrise/sunset should be a bit more spectacular. Here's the CNN story:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/23/dust.stor...m.ap/index.html

 

[Bill Tabor]

http://hadar.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/on...ropical/126.jpg

It doesn't seem to go as far north as Florida or Texas, but it does appear very large and obvious on the sat image. Also looks like storms and Cu underneath the cloud are affected. It seems to cause them to expand, blossom, and then become downdraft dominant.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

There are probably better sites showing the sun's track across the earth's surface, but if you go to the NASA site here (tracking the Int'l Space Station): http://science.nasa.gov/Realtime/JTrack/Sp...Spacecraft.html

Then look for the little 'sun' icon ... you'll be able to see the apx. latitude that the sun is currently tracking across. Ok - so what I'm getting at here is that because the apparent setting of the sun is still so far north of the equator, but still south of Florida/Texas, etc ... then the sun should still be rising/setting through the cloud as seen in Bill's satellite post. So the color should be there, whether or not the cloud itself actually makes it to Florida. (hopefully this is accurate and makes sense) ...

Anyway - - - would be really cool if some of you Floridians could be on the lookout for some deep red sunrise/sunsets and post some photos here just for fun. We took pictures during the Yellowstone fires back in 1988, which were deep red from all of the smoke in the atmosphere. Made for some nice shots - - -