19 October 2012
Plains Cyclone Brings Rare Dust Storm To The Deep South
Posted by Dan Satterfield
This image is from the NASA Terra Satellite and clearly shows the dust wrapping around the intense Great lakes Low this afternoon.
Winds gusted across the Plains to nearly 50 mph on Thursday, bringing a real dust storm to much of Kansas and Northern Oklahoma. Today the dust has reached Tennessee and Alabama, and the dry soil from the summer drought almost certainly played a role in this event as well.
The latest GOES image Friday afternoon shows the intense low near Chicago. This is what meteorologists call a cutoff low and it extends through much of the troposphere. It is slowly weakening now, and the strong winds are diminishing.
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.
Branon Marrs said on 20 October 2012
this low trough is as intense as that of a hurricane, even has the characters of an eye core….