Dust from the Sahara, which was observed in Greece yesterday, has reached Ukraine today. This was reported by the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Centre, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.
On the satellite image, where the dust is marked in pink, it is clearly visible over the southern and central regions of the country and spreads to the north.
“Since most of the country’s weather is driven by a cyclone and moist air masses, this will encourage dust particles to be trapped by water droplets in clouds and precipitation. Therefore, this dust will be washed out of the atmosphere faster, but in some areas this phenomenon can give the clouds a yellowish tint, and the raindrops themselves will contain this dust and will not be crystal clear,”
– the Hydrometeorological Centre said.
The dust will remain in the atmosphere until Friday, and on Saturday it will retreat to the east and the atmosphere will clear.
What is a dust storm?
A duststorm is an atmospheric phenomenon of wind transport of large amounts of dust, sand, soil particles, etc. A dust storm can be several metres to several kilometres high, and line of sight at its epicentre can be reduced to several tens of metres. If a dust storm is formed over sandy soils, it is called a sandstorm
A dust storm is formed when winds of 10 m/s or more blow over dry and sparsely vegetated soil. It lifts soil particles into the air and carries them over long distances. Such storms are most common in deserts and semi-deserts, arable steppes, etc. On the planet, they are common in the regions of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and China. Dust storms can sometimes travel thousands of kilometres.
The frequency of dust storms has increased 10-fold since the 1950s. There are regions that suffer from this phenomenon more than others. For example, while in the 1960s Mauritania used to experience two such storms a year, since 2007 there have been about 80 per year.