Hazy skies spied across parts of Alabama on Thursday afternoon aren’t the usual summertime ozone pollution.
It’s actually dust — from Africa’s Sahara Desert.
A cloud of dust could be seen on NOAA satellites moving across parts of north and central Alabama on Thursday afternoon (shown above).
That dust originally traveled from Africa across the Atlantic, into the Gulf, then curled northward through Texas — eventually making its way east toward Alabama.
The dust is being steered (in part) by an area of high pressure situated along the Gulf Coast, which is circulating air clockwise around it.
The dust may look hazy and dirty, but it’s nothing to be particularly concerned about. According to Airnow.gov, the air quality on Friday is expected to be moderate range — which is the level between good and a Code Orange alert.
Here’s the air quality forecast for Friday:
The air quality index for Friday is expected to be in the moderate range for all of Alabama because of the presence of Saharan Dust.Airnow.gov
According to NOAA, Saharan dust, called the Saharan Air Layer or SAL, typically peaks from late June to mid-August. “During this peak period, it is common for individual SAL outbreaks to reach farther to the west—as far west as Florida, Central America and even Texas—and cover extensive areas of the Atlantic.”
Sometimes the presence of Saharan dust can cause beautiful sunsets and sunrises. However, the sunset forecast for Thursday isn’t pointing to any above-average skies tonight:
Here’s the sunset forecast for Thursday. Warmer colors indicate a better sunset.SunsetWx.com
The sunrise forecast for Friday isn’t very promising, either:
Here is the sunrise forecast for Friday. Warmer colors on the map indicate a more spectacular sunrise.SunsetWx.com
