A Saharan dust plume is set to hit the Gulf Coast this week. See when it'll arrive

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2 days ago

A plume of dust from the Saharan Desert appears set to sweep across Florida and the Gulf Coast this week, providing the region with enhanced sunrises and sunsets.
AccuWeather hurricane expert Alex DaSilva, in a report released by the forecasting company on June 2, said that the plume is roughly 2,000 miles wide from west to east and 750 miles long from north to south. The plume appears to be the largest to reach America so far this year.
Alan Reppert, AccuWeather senior meteorologist, told USA TODAY June 2 that the plume will likely make it over Florida on June 4 and move over the Gulf Coast the following two days.
Reppert told USA TODAY that sunsets in the areas covered by dust will be "more vibrant" depending on the amount of dust in an area.
"Florida could see hazy skies and more colorful sunsets enhanced by the dust from Africa as early as Thursday," DaSilva said in the report. "Hazy skies caused by the Saharan dust could be noticeable in Houston and New Orleans."
The regions covered by the dust plume may see a slight impact on air quality, though the majority of the dust will not be dense enough to cause major problems, according to Reppert.
Saharan dust is dust and sand from the continent of Africa that gets brought over via wind around this time every year.
Winds, known as trade winds, pick up Saharan dust, lift it into the atmosphere, and bring it across the Atlantic Ocean, Ross Giarratana, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Tampa Bay forecast office, previously told USA TODAY. June and July are the months that bring the most dust.
'It happens every year; some years have more dust transportation across the Atlantic than others,' said Sammy Hadi, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Miami, told the New York Times. 'It's like rinse and repeat every year, it's part of a normal cycle of Earth's oscillations.'
Saharan dust also controls the number of storms that form in the tropics, according to DaSilva and Giarratana.
A warm, moist environment is crucial to create a storm but the dust acts like a silica packet people receive in their packages and sucks out any moisture that might be in the atmosphere.
"It basically can choke off these systems because, again, they want plenty of moisture, and when you're taking the moisture away, it makes it harder for thunderstorms to develop," DaSilva said previously.
DaSilva said in the report that so-called "dirty rain" could leave dust stains and brown residue on cars in Florida this weekend.
"It's just dust," DaSilva previously told USA TODAY. "It won't hurt you."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The largest Saharan dust cloud of the year set to reach U.S. this week