Weather
Sahara dust is evaporating over Germany
The Alps, lying in the haze, are reflected in a pond. The Sahara dust peak has passed. photo
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa
The Sahara dust caused the fine dust concentrations to rise drastically – well above the limit value. The weather phenomenon should subside during Sunday. Unstable, stormy weather follows.
Goodbye brownish-cloudy light: the thick layer Sahara dust, which still dominated Germany on Saturday, has largely disappeared. “The highlight was yesterday,” said Felix Dietzsch, meteorologist for the German Weather Service (DWD) in Offenbach. “The Saharan dust has decreased significantly and is currently only above northeastern Germany.”
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. This will be followed by unsettled and stormy weather with showers and thunderstorms from the southwest.
On Saturday, the Saharan dust ensured that the daily average limit for fine dust particles with a diameter of less than 10 micrometers (PM10) was significantly exceeded: According to Dietzsch, the limit of 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air was roughly tripled in many places. Such values for only a short period of time are harmless for healthy people, said the meteorologist.
Not a rare phenomenon
According to the DWD, Sahara dust in the air is not a rare phenomenon in Central Europe. 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 about 5 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 model calculations, 180,000 tons of Saharan dust hung over Switzerland alone on Saturday, according to a meteorologist. That’s about twice as much as usual for this natural phenomenon, it was said.
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. You should first cross Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg from the southwest – with showers and sometimes strong thunderstorms.
Deep comes from France
On Easter Monday another low should move from France across Germany towards the Baltic Sea. “Then it can rain very heavily, and later on for a longer period of time,” said Dietzsch. South of it it is very stormy with wind gusts of force 7 to 8, in the low mountain ranges even up to force 9. According to the DWD, the maximum values on Monday are between 13 degrees in the west and up to 20 degrees on the Oder and in Chiemgau.
Rainfall is expected to ease on Tuesday, but it will remain stormy. It gets a little cooler with maximum temperatures between 10 and 16 degrees. “The next area of rain will move in from the west on Wednesday,” said Dietzsch. The “lively low pressure activity” will continue until the end of the week.