Dust Cloud Headed for US Is so Large It Can Be Seen From Space

A satellite image of the tropical Atlantic Ocean on Thursday, July 6, 2023. A cloud of Saharan dust could be seen over the eastern Caribbean Sea, while another dust cloud was emerging off the coast of Africa. (US NOAA/GOES-EAST)

A massive dust cloud from the Sahara Desert is currently drifting west over the Atlantic Ocean and is slated to impact the United States starting this weekend, forecasters say.

“The Saharan dust is so dense and widespread that it could be seen from space on Thursday. NOAA’s GOES-EAST weather satellite spotted the first cloud of dust over the eastern Caribbean Sea and the Lesser Antilles, with an even bigger plume of dust emerging off the coast of Africa,” said AccuWeather on Friday, adding that it could “impact people across the Southeast in the coming days.”

Imagery posted by satellites show a large cloud of dust currently over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Saharan dust is common most years across parts of the Atlantic basin and sometimes spreads as far west as the Caribbean and Florida,” AccuWeather’s Dan DePodwin said via the outlet. “The location and magnitude of the dust changes frequently throughout the season.”

The dust cloud comes from Africa’s Sahara Desert and moves over the tropical portions of the Atlantic Ocean every three to five days during peak season in late June to mid-August, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“A dust-filled sky over Florida may also help to block out some sunlight to knock down temperatures by a few degrees compared to the heat during the first week of July,” says AccuWeather’s forecast, adding: “The thicker dust cloud is predicted to reach the eastern Caribbean by the end of the weekend and may approach Florida by Tuesday.”

“If this forecast comes to fruition, it may cause air quality to worsen across Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and Florida,” the forecast said.

Sensitive people across the southern U.S. and Gulf Coast who plan on spending time outdoors in the next week are encouraged to check the air quality in their area due to the African dust.

Some forecasters, meanwhile, said that the dust could put a damper on tropical storms and hurricanes heading for the United States.

“Most hurricane experts think that the Saharan Air Layer is bad for hurricanes,” University of Miami meteorologist Brian McNoldy said in a NASA article published last year. “Not only does it contain dry air, but there’s typically a layer of high wind shear associated with it. Hurricanes hate both of those things.”

The reason why is because the dust can act as a barrier that keeps sunlight from hitting the surface temperatures, which can reduce the activity of hurricanes. Higher ocean temperatures can provide hurricanes with more energy to form and increase in power, weather forecasters have said.

This week, forecasters with Colorado State University said that as many as nine hurricanes could form in the Atlantic basin for the 2023 season. They also said that about 18 tropical storms could form this year in all, which is an upgrade from the 15 named storms and seven hurricanes that were forecast earlier this year for the 2023 season, which lasts from now until November.

“Large swaths of the tropical and subtropical North Atlantic are at record warm levels, favoring Atlantic hurricane activity,” Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach wrote in a post on Thursday. “This anomalous warmth is why CSU’s seasonal hurricane forecast has increased, despite likely robust El Niño.”

Canada Fires

Wildfires raging across Canada have already broken records for total area burned, the number of people forced to evacuate their homes and the cost of fighting the blazes, and the fire season is only halfway finished, officials said Thursday.

Heavy smog covers the skylines of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York on June 7, 2023. (Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

“It’s no understatement to say that the 2023 fire season is and will continue to be record breaking in a number of ways,” Michael Norton, director general of Northern Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, said during a briefing.

Mr. Norton said warm weather and dry conditions across Canada indicate the potential for higher-than-normal fire activity through July and August.

“Drought is a major contributing factor affecting parts of all provinces and territories, intensifying in some regions,” he said. “When coupled with forecasts for ongoing above normal temperatures across most of the country, it is anticipated that many parts of Canada will continue to see above normal fire activity.”

As of Wednesday, there were 639 active fires burning in Canada with 351 of them out of control. So far this year there have been 3,412 fires, well above the 10-year average of 2,751, said Mr. Norton.

Over the past several weeks, smoke that drifted from the Canadian wildfires enveloped major U.S. cities such as New York and Washington in a layer of reddish-brown haze.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.