AccuWeather's Melissa Constanzer explains how dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa impacts tropical development during the Atlantic hurricane season, disrupting the process with dry and dusty air.

Saharan dust, visible as brownish clouds in satellite imagery, regularly moves westward across the Atlantic from northern Africa. This dust plays a significant role in tropical development during the Atlantic hurricane season by introducing dry, dusty air that limits the moisture needed for storm formation.

The presence of Saharan dust inhibits convection and prevents thunderstorms from organizing into tropical systems. Large streams and plumes of dust, especially early in the season, can suppress the development of showers and thunderstorms, reducing the likelihood of hurricanes forming in affected regions.

How Saharan dust impacts the Tropics during hurricane season

Mhm. Satellite imagery over the past few days looking across the Atlantic shows you day in and day out a brownish cloud moving westward across the Atlantic. That is Saharan dust working its way through. And we do know that Saharan dust plays a large role in tropical development, especially this time of year. So when we talk about Atlantic hurricane season and when we look for tropical development, we know we need warm water, we need limited wind shear and we need sufficient moisture. Basically, if there's a lot of dry, dusty air that's gonna stop that convection from forming those thunderstorms from forming to help organize a tropical system. So now, as we talk about Saharan dust, let's take a little bit of a geography trip, shall we? We'll go across the world over to Africa. And as we go across the ocean, you can see in Africa, northern Africa, the Saharan Desert is the largest hot desert in the world. There is a desert through the Arctic and Antarctic. It's also north of the equator, which we know this time of year, the sun's rays are really beating down near and just north of the equator. That's gonna help drive showers and thunderstorms. So we have this moist air mass here to the south, and then it starts to develop more dust just north of that area. Well, that dust comes out in giant streams and plumes this time of year, captured by the high pressure system for the early season of the Atlantic hurricane season. Once we get into July and August, the middle of the season, that high starts to drift a little farther west. So sometimes not everything gets pushed all the way east. But what we do know is those thunderstorms, they start to develop more across the Saharan giant clusters. These are the tropical waves will follow across the Atlantic for potential development. But ahead of it, we can also get large dust plumes, which would inhibit any sort of showers and thunderstorms ahead of that tropical wave.

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