Saharan Dust Halts Hurricanes from Forming

If you have noticed in the past few days that the sunsets have been particularly bright and beautiful, it was caused by Saharan dust.

This dust plume has made an incredible journey across the Atlantic Ocean and then into the Gulf of Mexico across Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and finally to us here in Texas. This dust creates a hazy sky which makes the sunrises and especially sunsets beautiful and look much brighter than usual.

This phenomenon is the strongest it has been in 50 years, but this does happen every year. These dust plumes are caused by strong thunderstorms over central and west Africa that create a massive dust storm over the Sahara that then gets picked up by a jet stream over central Africa and travels over the Atlantic Ocean.

The arrival of Saharan dust does one good thing for us. Since this dust is just hot, dry air, it pauses hurricane formation in the Atlantic Ocean. Hurricanes hate dry air and will not form under those conditions, which is especially great this year with an extremely active hurricane season underway.

Late at night on July 4 and early morning on July 5 we will be able to see a penumbral lunar eclipse, where the moon will turn a dark silver color as the Earth partially blocks the Sun’s light on the moon.

As for rain chances for this upcoming week, it will stay at a low 20% chance for Wednesday and Thursday and dry out as we head into the weekend.