Posted on 07/23/2005 6:40:04 PM PDT by Black Tooth
Another storm is headed toward South Florida -- and it's not a hurricane.
Born in the desert of North Africa, an immense cloud of Saharan sand is being swept across the Atlantic Ocean by the tradewinds.
By early next week, South Floridians will experience hazy blue skies, bright orange sunsets and coats of reddish dust on their cars, the National Weather Service said Friday.
''This is not going to be a tremendous event, but it will be kind of interesting,'' said Jim Lushine, a severe weather expert with Miami's weather bureau.
The sand is lifted from the Sahara Desert, piggybacking on the tropical waves that sweep from east to west over the Atlantic. Such dust clouds are fairly common in July and August, although they can vary in intensity from year to year.
''It's really not rare,'' said Joseph M. Prospero, a professor at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. ``We normally see several extreme dust events each year.''
Air quality is expected to worsen a bit, although experts say the dust shouldn't pose any serious health problems. As a precaution, people with breathing problems may want to limit their time outdoors, said Jim Wheeler, a supervisor with the air monitoring division of the Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resource Management.
''Most of it is going to be in the upper atmosphere,'' Wheeler said.
This particular cloud will likely affect the Caribbean basin more directly, and linger over the region for about 12 hours. It measures about 1,500 miles north to south and 2,500 miles west to east.
Does anything GOOD ever come out of Africa?!
Just wondering..can any insects hop a ride on this thing?
I'm sorry but my 1st thought was we could use it here. We ran out of sand bags:')
Hurricane Sandy?
You get the sand, but not the bags !
Actually, Discovery did a study sometime back and these can carry viruses, acids, pesticides, bugs...A lot of stuff.
Oh oh. There goes the ozone. Paging Al Gore, paging Al Gore
Moses did, with his people.
We're still near the top of the alphabet. It arrives a bit too late since we've already had "D"ennis, but the proper name is "D"usty.
According to PC-revisionist history, everything came out of Egypt...all stolen by Western Civilization.
And it has gone downhill since then...;-)
Along with virus, and bacteria, the dust clouds can carry small insects that can wreck havoc on plants and crops. It's happened in the past.
Who woulda thunk it?
On the bright side, I hear this thing will bring us some bitchin' sunrises and sunsets.
Coffee!
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