Saharan Dust Turns European Skies, Snow Orange

Dust from the Sahara Desert turned this cross country ski
course in Switzerland orange. Photo by Salvator Di Nolfi/EPA

 The sky and the snow turned orange in some parts of Europe last week and weekend   The reason? Dust from the Sahara desert swept in from the south. 

The dust turned the sky orange over parts of France, Switzerland, Spain and other parts of Europe. The dust and sand settled on ski areas up in the mountains, turning the snow orange as well. 

Dust from the Sahara Desert does get blown into Europe a few times a year. This episode was more pronounced than usual.  

In this case, a storm strengthened over far southwestern Europe. This produced southerly winds over parts of the Sahara Desert that picked up some pretty big plumes of dust. The south winds blew across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe, where the dust created the orange haze and sifted down from the sky and onto high elevation ski slopes. 

That dust in the snow can make it melt a little faster in the spring.  White snow reflects the sun's energy back out to space. Darker colors in the snow absorb the heat, making the snow melt faster. 

Sahara Desert dust really gets around, by the way. It sometimes goes as far north as the United Kingdom.

In the summer and autumn, huge plumes of dust sometimes go east to west across the Atlantic Ocean, squelching hurricane activity and causing hazy skies in the Caribbean Sea and parts of South and North America, including the United States.