top of page

SAHARAN DUST ARRIVES IN SOUTH FLORIDA THIS WEEK - CARIBBEAN BLANKETED

Writer: Bryan NorcrossBryan Norcross

The milkiness of the skies over South Florida will increase this week as the edge of a thick plume of dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa reaches our shores. We should start to notice the plume tomorrow, with the most conspicuous effects Thursday and Friday.

A strong high-pressure system over the Atlantic is creating a river of air from Africa, over the tropical Atlantic, the Caribbean, and into the Gulf of Mexico. The main channel is over the Caribbean islands, where skies were profoundly dusty over the weekend and will continue to be that way. The air in a major Saharan dust outbreak can be harmful to people with breathing difficulties.

The dust is forecast to spread out enough this week such that the southern part of the Florida peninsula will be in its path, but we won’t get the densest part of the plume.

The dry, dusty air combined with the strong Atlantic high has the effect of quashing tropical disturbances. The dust is mostly less than 10,000 feet high in the atmosphere, so developing systems can’t grow very high without the sponge-effect of the dry air interfering.

The edge of the plume can act like a front and kick off some thunderstorms. In addition, over land, some thunderstorms are expected, and they may be quite strong and gusty. And with the breeze off the Atlantic, the cells that develop will be mostly in the night and morning hours on the east coast, with the afternoon storms inland and west.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, the pesky upper-level low that affected our weather all last week, spawned a daughter low-pressure system over the Gulf Stream off the Northeast U.S. coast. The National Hurricane Center has been monitoring it to see if it might develop some tropical characteristics over the relatively warm water, but that looks unlikely to happen. The window of opportunity was short.

No tropical development of concern is expected this week.

Comments


© 2023 by Bryan Norcross Corporation

This EXPERIMENTAL and AUTOMATED page displays advisory information compiled from text advisories and graphics issued for public consumption by the National Hurricane Center.  Every effort is made to display the information accurately, however as with any experimental system, errors in the acquisition, storage, analysis, manipulation, or display of the data may occur on occasion.  Refer to www.hurricanes.gov for official information directly from the National Hurricane Center.

 

Terms of Use

Social media posts: Advisory-summary images may be shared with credit to hurricaneintel.com. In blogs, articles, and on websites: Advisory-summary images from this site may be used if hurricaneintel.com is credited. However, you may NOT embed real-time updating content from this page without special permission. For further information contact mail (at) bryannorcross (dot) com.

bottom of page