Posted on 06/19/2020 10:07:57 AM PDT by BenLurkin
By the time it floats down from the atmosphere it will have traveled more than 5,000 miles, CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said. While it sounds dramatic, it's actually pretty normal.
Right now the cloud is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to drift over the U.S. by next Tuesday, the Houston Chronicle reported. It will most likely sap some of the humidity from the air, the Chronicle said.
While its presence is usually innocuous, the dust can irritate people who have respiratory issues, depending on its concentration in the air, the Chronicle said.
Saharan dust tends to cross the ocean during June and July, according to WBBH-TV. Satellite measurements a few years ago revealed just how much.
Winds routinely scoop up on average 182 million tons each year and loft it toward the Western Hemisphere, NASA found in a 2015 study—equivalent to 689,290 semitrucks filled with dust, the space agency said in a statement at the time.
The plumes that land farther south than the U.S. nourish the Amazon rainforest, the researchers found by studying a seven-year span. By the time it reaches the eastern coast of South America it has dwindled to 132 million tons, 27.7 million of which fall over the Amazon basin. That's enough to fill 104,908 semis, NASA said. Another 43 million tons drift over the Caribbean Sea...
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Minerals blown off the Sahara fuel the microbes that undergird the Bahaman ecosystem
Dust from the Sahara also fertilizes the Amazon rain forest.
Next week’s NYT headline: Trump steals life-giving soil from poor Africans and gives it to his loyal supporters in Southern US.
Also helps reduce the Hurricane threat.
Could possibly trigger severe flooding across the SE US...................
LOL- or ‘Steals it then sells it to the Chinese and Russians’
Every year during this time of year there is a ‘cloud’ which seems to hang in the air to the Southwest of Houston. I had always assumed that it came from the Mexican desert. I learned something new today! ;-)
Even dust wants to come to America.
Global Dusting Change.
We are goners.
.
Maybe that dust can help replenish the Cape Cod sand dunes, too.
The dust storms from Africa also fertilize the Atlantic Ocean and the soil of the New World. There should be good fishing in the Atlantic this year.
“Dust” or “fine sand” do not “nurture” anything.
Nice to know it may reduce hurricane strength/probability.
Probably not. The ECMWF model forecasts heavy rain Wednesay and Thursday.
I suppose the various nations of the Sahara will now make a claim on parts of the US as “It is part of OUR LAND!”
I am surprised that Arizona has not made a claim on the western half on New Mexico as it is really Arizona dust!
LOL
So true!
As Pliny the Elder said, “There’s always something new out of Africa.”
Uh...it’s going to the SE. Better have a extremely large telescopic lens
Is this like the Korean flame throwing squirrels? Or the murder hornets? Or the blood sucking monkeys from West Mifflin, PA?
Sunrise ... Sunset
Living on the Gulf I enjoy both
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