Dust from the Sahara Desert is bringing more heat to Tampa Bay

Jack Prator, Tampa Bay Times
Updated ·2 min read
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It’s not smoke from Canadian wildfires, and it’s not exactly a dust storm. Dust from what meteorologists call the Saharan Air Layer is on track to reach Florida this weekend, bringing hot and dry weather to the Tampa Bay area.

Floridians may remember similar dust clouds that blew in during past summers.

The layer of dry air is formed by dust plumes blowing from the Sahara Desert across the Atlantic Ocean, where dust clouds can affect weather patterns far away, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It can form during the late spring, summer and early fall.

The air layer is currently hanging about 1 mile above sea level between the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. National Weather Service meteorologist Rodney Wynn said Tampa Bay will experience the weather event’s peak conditions on Sunday.

Global average temperatures reached the highest in decades this week, and Wynn said the air layer could continue that streak into the weekend.

“It’s going to be warm and a little bit drier,” he said. “Probably about 3 to 4 degrees above average.”

Wynn said the height of the dust clouds shouldn’t cause visibility concerns.

“It’s not like you’re going to wake up one morning and have dust on your car,” he said.

Megan Borowski, a Florida Public Radio Emergency Network meteorologist, said the dust layer could irritate people with pre-existing respiratory issues.

“You don’t want to be breathing those particles in,” she said.

This week, forecasters changed their initial hurricane predictions to expect an above-average season due to hot Atlantic Ocean temperatures. But the incoming dry air could delay tropical storms — which form in moist conditions.

The thickness of the air layer also plays a part in thunderstorms, Borowski said.

“Thicker means a lot more dry air and dust particles — and so that would help to quell the tropics,” she said.

Beautiful sunsets are another upside brought by the air layer.

“When the dust layer does arrive you can actually get really neat atmospheric optical effects,” Borowski said. “One of the cool things that I’ve got pictures of are halos around the sun, and it’s just the way that the sand particles and dust particles actually reflect sunlight.”