The 3,500-mile-long cloud traveled 5,000 miles from North Africa before reaching Florida.
A huge plume of whipped dust from the Sahara Desert will hover over the southeastern United States this weekend, according to forecasters, enveloping the region in a brown haze and causing more health problems in states where the crisis coronavirus is getting worse.
The 3,500-mile-long (5,600 km) cloud, dubbed the “Godzilla dust cloud,” traveled 5,000 miles (8,047 km) from North Africa before reaching the region from Florida to the West to Texas and north to North Carolina via Arkansas, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
“It is a really dry layer of air that contains these very fine dust particles.
This happens every summer, “said NWS meteorologist Patrick Blood.
“Some of these plumes contain more particles, and right now we expect a very large plume of dust on the Gulf Coast.” This year, the dust is the densest it has been in half a century, several meteorologists told Reuters week as it crossed the Caribbean.
The Saharan plume of dust will hang over the region until the middle of next week, worsening air quality in Texas, Florida and other states where the number of COVID-19 cases has recently increased.
“There is new evidence of potential interactions between air pollution and the risk of COVID, so at this point we are concerned,” said Gregory Wellenius, professor of environmental health at the School of Public Health at l ‘Boston University. Air pollution can be particularly damaging to those at risk or suffering from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, added Wellenius.
Heart and lung problems increase the risk of severe COVID-19. The plume will create a misty sky and less visibility.
In the past, plumes of dust from Africa have dumped a thin layer of dust on vehicles in Houston, where air quality is still a concern, said Blood.
The dry air mass that carries dust can suppress the formation of tropical storms and hurricanes and can enhance and light up sunrises and sunsets, meteorologists said.
