A historically thick dust storm just passed over North Carolina, dimming out the sun for part of the day yesterday. Officially called the ‘Saharan Air Layer’ (SAL), the thick and dry plume of desert dust traveled across the Atlantic Ocean in the middle atmosphere.
The ‘Tapp Channel’ just released a video of what the dust storm looked like here in the Queen City. Under the video he notes that “around 4PM when those crazy clouds came and covered entire city skyline… It looked like a crazy thunderstorm is coming but the broadcast showed 0% chance of rain… Later on I found out that was the result of the recent Sahara Desert Storm and Dust cloud”
Here is the full video of the dust storm over the North Carolina mountains and over Charlotte:
According NASA’s Atmospheric Composition Model, the heart of the storm covered Charlotte over the past 3 days:
The most recent Saharan Dust Model shows the heart of the storm hitting Charlotte this weekend. If trends hold up, it may be thick enough to dim the sun. #SaharanDust #cltwx pic.twitter.com/qi3BKGakGg
— Charlotte Stories (@clt_stories) June 23, 2020
Did you notice the dust storm?