A massive cloud of dust from the Sahara Desert is arriving along the U.S. Gulf Coast this week after traveling across the Atlantic Ocean. The phenomenon happens every year – but the 2020 version is especially large and imposing, experts said.

The dust cloud is “quite large” this year, said Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia, in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered. “I think that’s why it’s garnering so much attention.”

That attention has included some experts who are calling it the “Godzilla dust cloud” due to its unusual size.

There are signs that the cloud is living up to the hype. Michael Lowry, an atmospheric scientist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the cloud shattered the previous record for dust across the tropical Atlantic, as measured by the MODIS satellite.

As of Thursday morning, the cloud was stretching from the western Caribbean, over Belize and the Yucatán Peninsula, and through most of the central and western Gulf of Mexico, blanketing a huge area with its haze.

After reaching the U.S. shore in Texas and other states on the Gulf of Mexico, the dust cloud is expected to shift toward the northeast, moving across the Southeastern U.S.

“I think we’ll get it mainly over the weekend,” Shepherd said, discussing the dust cloud’s likely arrival in Georgia.

The dust sharply reduced visibility when it hit Puerto Rico this week, with its haze completely masking mountains in El Yunque National Forest in northeastern Puerto Rico.

The technical name for the phenomenon is the “Saharan Air Layer,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“This layer can travel and impact locations thousands of miles away from its African origins,” the agency says, “which is one reason why NOAA uses the lofty perspective of its satellites to track it.”

As the dust crosses the Atlantic, “it usually occupies a 2- to 2.5-mile-thick layer of the atmosphere with its base starting about 1 mile above the surface,” NOAA hurricane researcher Jason Dunion said.

As the dust moved across Louisiana on Thursday, images from the ground showed it had turned the sky a milky color with not a trace of blue.

“Typically, you lose the blue sky for more hazy, milky sky,” Shepherd said. “You tend to see more vivid sunsets and sunrises because of the scattering properties of the dust interacting with the sunlight.

“So those are sort of the optical effects. But I think people that suffer from allergies or perhaps have some kind of allergy to dust or particulate matter, they actually might not find it so amusing. They may have some health issues.”

Experts also noted that the dust could add to challenges faced by people infected with the coronavirus, complicating the respiratory ailments they face.

The dust is already affecting air quality on the U.S. mainland, with the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow monitoring map showing the southern rim of Gulf states draped in warning colors of yellow and orange.

By Thursday morning, Lake Charles, La., was reporting “the highest air quality index value in the country,” at 114, as NPR member station WWNO reported.

In addition to causing dramatic sunsets, the Saharan dust cloud also serves at least two positive purposes: It tends to hamper the development of hurricanes, due to its warm, dry air, according to NOAA.

The dust also “plays an important ecological role, such as fertilizing soils in the Amazon and building beaches in the Caribbean,” NASA’s Earth Observatory said.

Each year, the NASA unit said, winds in North Africa loft about 800 million metric tons of desert dust into the air, often scattering the dust thousands of miles away.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/25/883555736/saharan-dust-cloud-arrives-at-the-u-s-gulf-coast-bringing-the-haze

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The powerful eye wall of Harvey initially reached land by 11 p.m. ET between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor, Texas, with the then-Category 4 storm packing winds of more than 130 mph. As it moved over land, Harvey gradually lost some of its punch and by 6 a.m. ET was downgraded to a still-dangerous Category 1 hurricane with winds at 90 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

It was the first Category 4 hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Charley in 2004.

Millions of residents along the south Texas coast saw hurricane-force winds that knocked down trees, power poles and signs.

First responders are yet to assess the impact that the extremely powerful hurricane has caused over Texas in the first hours since landfall but forecasters have said it will be devastating and leave areas “uninhabitable for weeks or months.”

Harvey has the “highest potential to kill the most amount of people and cause the most amount of damage,” said Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

As Harvey deluges Texas, coastal cities could see 13 feet of storm surge and as much as 40 inches of rain by Wednesday.

Latest developments
— Almost 10 inches of rain had already been reported at a few locations in southeastern Texas as of 5 a.m. ET, the National Weather Service said.

— There have been reports of structural and building problems in Rockport, Aransas Pass, and Port Aransas, Texas, said Tom Beal, a meteorologist with National Weather Service office in Corpus Christi. He anticipated that the hurricane would clear that area sometime about 4 a.m. ET Saturday.

— The hurricane center said a tide gauge in Port Lavaca, Texas reported storm surge of 6.4 feet.

— More than 211,000 customers of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) electric system have lost power since Harvey made landfall Friday night, the corporation said.

— Rockport, Texas, officials are advising residents who refuse to evacuate to write their names and Social Security number on their forearm, Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Rios told CNN. Rios said it will “help out first responders should they find a body.”

— President Donald Trump, who will visit the area next week, has signed a disaster declaration for the state.

Just the Beginning
Firefighters were “hunkered down” in the fire station as the eye of the storm was over them.

Roy Laird, assistant chief with the Rockport Volunteer Fire Department, told CNN they were anxious to get out and check the city for damage but it could be hours before they will be able to safely leave the station.

“We had probably 140 mph winds earlier. It was howling,” Laird added.

For hours, Karl Hattman and his family heard “what sounded like a freight train” from inside their Rockport home. When they decided to see what the storm had done to their neighborhood on Saturday, they faced an already chaotic scene.

Surrounded by the early morning darkness, they saw many trees down, a pile of debris blocking their driveway and Hattman’s vehicle damaged after it was hit by roof tiles.

“We are very concerned to see what (Harvey) has been done when it lights out in the morning,” Kattman said.

Joey Walker, 25, works with the Galveston Island Beach Patrol and was riding out the storm from a house on Galveston Island. He posted video of near-white out conditions overlooking Stewart Beach.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said anyone not leaving should plan to stay off the roads once the storm starts.

“People need to know, this is not a one-, two-day event and done,” Turner said.

The storm will stall and dump rain on South Texas and parts of Louisiana into the middle of next week, forecasters predicted.

CNN’s Dave Alsup, Artemis Moshtaghian, Joe Sterling, Amanda Jackson, Matt Rehbein, AnneClaire Stapleton, Dakin Andone, David Williams, David Shortell, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Nick Valencia contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/26/us/hurricane-harvey-landfall/index.html

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