Looks like Red Tide is in store for Florida acccording to this study.
Storm activity in the Sahara Desert region generates clouds of dust that originate from fine particles in the arid topsoil. Easterly trade winds carry the dust across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Gulf of Mexico. "Because iron is one of the most common elements in most soils, a certain percentage of the dust contains iron," said Lenes.
The study used satellite and ground based measurements to track large dust clouds leaving Africa on June 17, 1999. Lenes and his colleagues followed the clouds using data from the Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), an imager aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES).
The Saharan dust reached the West Florida shelf around July 1st, increasing iron concentrations in the surface waters by 300 percent. As a result, Trichodesmium counts shot up 10 times what they had been prior to this event. Through a complex process involving a special enzyme called nitrogenase, the Trichodesmium used the iron to convert nitrogen in the water to a form more usable for other marine life. In October, after a 300 percent increase of dissolved organic nitrogen, a huge bloom of toxic red algae (Karenia brevis) had formed within the study area, an 8,100 square mile region between Tampa Bay and Fort Myers, Florida.
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20010824redtides.html
Interesting.
Did you know that Cape Verde storms sometimes even blow bugs from Africa into and across the Atlantic?
Merchant ships have been known to be covered with locust in the middle of the ocean.
Unbelievable--While reading the thread, was wondering if the dust cloud might improve the red tide situation around here...until reading your disturbing post.