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Evolution of the Saharan dust ‘outbreak’ across Europe

We take another look at the evolution and large extent of the current Saharan dust event across Europe.

The following sequence of model maps in 6-hour intervals covers the interval from April 23 at 06h UTC to April 25 at 00h UTC. Note the ‘tongue’ of dust pushing across France into the British Isles and Ireland at the beginning of the interval extend into the northern Atlantic and reach Iceland by late on April 24 and then push further into the Strait of Denmark towards Greenland. Meanwhile dust pushes across central into eastern Europe as far as the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine and as far north as southern Sweden.

Large dust loads persist over the central Mediterranean: the southern coast of the Mediterranean in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, across Malta and south Italy, into Greece and western Turkey.

While Saharan dust events are not rare, particularly across the Mediterranean and southern Europe, the current one is very extensive and is producing major dust loads.








While Saharan dust events are not rare, particularly across the Mediterranean and southern Europe, the current one is very extensive and is producing major dust loads.

The visualization is made ‘in-house’, using high resolution NASA GEOS-5 model data.