It's expected to reach northward toward the Ohio Valley on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The evidence of its arrival in our atmosphere will be hazy skies and some spectacular sunrises and sunsets.
The bulk of the dust will spin over Alabama, Georgia and Florida as it reverses course and heads back toward the Atlantic next week.
As it travels on, the dust will dissipate. The dust is high enough in the atmosphere that no damaging effects are expected, but if it were to make its way to the ground, state and federal environmental agencies would monitor air quality and test for particles.
The phenomenon is an annual summer event for South America, Mexico and our Gulf Coast. A similar plume in 2018 caused the worst air pollution of the year in Arkansas and Texas.
Locations in the Caribbean have seen air quality alerts described as the worst in 60 years.
The mass of extremely dry and dusty air known as the Saharan Air Layer forms over the Sahara Desert and moves across the North Atlantic every three to five days from late spring to early fall, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Some 800 million metric tons of desert dust blow up from North Africa thunderstorms and become the largest source of airborne dust particles on the planet, according to NASA. The plumes can travel more than 5,000 miles from the coast of Africa over the Atlantic Ocean.
