Saharan dust hovered over the Atlantic for several days in mid-January 2008. This image shows two different areas of dust plume activity. Immediately off the coasts of Western Sahara and Mauritania, a series of tan dust plumes blow in predominantly straight lines toward the northwest. Farther west, a large, diffuse plume of dust hangs over the Atlantic Ocean
A weather forecast for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on January 31, 2008, called for high winds and the possibility of dust storms. Two days later, the predictions came to pass—with a vengeance.
The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite spied dust from a Saharan sand storm blowing several thousand kilometers over the North Atlantic and Europe in April 2011.
Floridians looking for a break from hurricane season in late July 2005 were in for a change, though it wasn’t necessarily what they wanted: Saharan dust. By July 19, a massive dust storm had crossed the Atlantic towards southern Florida.
While dust routinely blows across the Atlantic Ocean, scientists rarely see plumes as large and dense with particles as the one that darkened Caribbean skies in June 2020.