"Blood rain": Storms drive Sahara dust to Germany - but meteorologist warns of something else

Created: 03/15/2022, 04:56

By: Franziska Schwarz

Strong winds drive Saharan dust from Africa to Europe.

The weather phenomenon will probably color the sky for several days.

Munich - desert sand in Germany*?

Yes, a common phenomenon.

The cause is often a particularly warm weather situation in the North African Sahara.

A storm in this desert then drives the grains of sand upwards, and winds then carry them even further north - that is, to Europe.

This time, the Sahara dust will probably arrive in this country on Tuesday (March 15), after the cloud first moved over Spain* and France*.

The larger granules quickly fall down this way - fine sand dust reaches us via the Alps.

This can be visually appealing, as the photo above shows: the particles in the atmosphere make them appear redder.

If precipitation* washes the dust grains out of the air, “blood rain” occurs, and the drops then turn brown.

For car owners, the weather* phenomenon also means that a wash cycle would be advisable.

Germany weather: Graphic shows the path of the Sahara dust in March

According to wetter.com

, this time the Sahara dust is causing a low pressure area* that is moving very far to the south and only stops off the coast of Morocco.

The European earth observation program Copernicus tweeted a graphic showing the path of the Sahara dust:

Sahara dust in Germany is usually no danger for allergy sufferers

As

writes about the phenomenon of Sahara dust, allergy sufferers do not have to worry about it.

According to allergists, the particles are not immediately hazardous to health because they are too small with a size of 0.1 to ten nanometers.

They could therefore not actually irritate the respiratory tract.

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In his March 14 newsletter, meteorologist Dominik Jung expects “a lot” of Sahara dust, which will also be observed in Germany by the weekend.

In his weather forecast, however, Jung emphasizes something else: It could be the sunniest and driest March since 1881 - that means a risk of forest fires.

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