In some regions of Germany the sky looked spectacular at times yesterday – yellowish-cloudy due to Saharan dust. This also caused an extremely high level of fine dust pollution.
The dust cloud from the Sahara has caused cloudy visibility and a yellowish sky over Germany. But not only that – the level of fine dust pollution has also increased enormously.
Yesterday, the fine dust levels determined by measuring stations across the country were “significantly, in some cases two to three times, above the limit values,” said meteorologist Felix Dietzsch from the German Weather Service (DWD) to the AFP news agency. Three-digit values were often measured. The daily limit is 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air. But such values for only a short period of time are harmless for healthy people, explained the meteorologist.
Such high Dust concentration rather rare
The dust pollution reached its “peak” yesterday, said Dietzsch. The DWD has received numerous photos in which only “milky, weak sunshine” can be seen – “it looks a bit like on Mars,” said the meteorologist. Such a thick dust cloud “over almost the entire country” is rare, he added. Saharan dust clouds with less dust content, on the other hand, are quite common.
On Easter Sunday there were still “a few remnants” of the dust cloud in northeastern Germany. The camera in Warnemünde on the Baltic Sea, for example, still showed a lot of cloudiness in the morning, Dietzsch reported. Since there was a strong southerly current on Sunday, “the cloud is moving out towards the Baltic Sea”. The dust should also disappear over Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania over the course of Sunday – “then it will be gone for good,” emphasized Dietzsch.
The outlook is also gloomy in Switzerland and France
The dust cloud from the Sahara clouded the sky in Switzerland and southeastern France on Friday and yesterday. The Swiss meteorologist Roman Brogli said on Swiss radio that, according to model calculations, there were 180,000 tons of Saharan sand over Switzerland on Saturday alone, an “extraordinarily large amount.”
Dust travels thousands of kilometers
According to the DWD, Sahara dust in the air is not a rare natural phenomenon in Central Europe. The particles are stirred up in the world’s largest dry desert in North Africa and carried by the wind thousands of kilometers north – especially in spring and autumn. Such dust particles come to Europe around five to 15 times a year – but rarely in the concentrations like this weekend.
According to Dietzsch, the reason for this intensity was a pronounced low pressure area over the Atlantic, on the side of which a very strong wind current transported the dust from the south to Central Europe – this also resulted in the strong Alpine foehn at the weekend.
According to the DWD expert, the so-called blood rain – when Sahara dust mixes with rain – largely did not occur in Germany. “There was little or no rain from the dust cloud,” said Dietzsch. Larger rainy areas only reached Germany after the dust had cleared away.