A Wave & African dust

A pesky tropical wave sliding to our South could bring us scattered showers through the weekend. Waves are very hard to forecast as they can grow quickly or fall apart just as fast. As this one moves over Cuba, we may get a few pockets of rain through Monday.

Most of the cloud cover with the wave remains over the Western Caribbean Sea. It will continue to head west over the next 24-48 hours.

You may have also noticed hazy skies over South Florida the last few days, NWS says this is due to dust that has traveled all the way from Africa and settled across the region. This is known as the Saharan Air Layer.  I know as someone who suffers from allergies, that this dust has not been kind to me, but there is hope. This what NWS is expecting:

• THE SAHARAN DUST THAT HAS BEEN PRESENT FOR THE PAST THREE DAYS IS BEGINNING TO CLEAR AS MOST OF THE DUST IS EXPECTED TO STAY SOUTH OF THE FLORIDA PENINSULA. HOWEVER...THE DEEP BLUE SKIES TYPICAL OF SOUTH FLORIDAWILL BE SLOW TO RETURN IN THE SHORT TERM.

By the way, the reason for the slow return of blue skies , will be lingering moisture from the wave to our South.

This dust helps make the sunsets redder and more brilliant. Its not only impacting us, but parts of the Caribbean as well. This is from NWS in San Juan:

• NAAPS AEROSOL MODEL INDICATING ANOTHER ROUND OF SAHARAN DUST MID NEXT WEEK.

There is some good news with this African dust, it actually helps to keep the air very dry. With arid conditions across the Atlantic, the chances for hurricanes to form remain low.

African dust emerges from the Saharan Desert as strong winds blow huge piles of sand into the atmosphere and get pushed west over the Atlantic Ocean.