Q&A of the Day – Where Does 2025’s Persistent Saharan Dust Rank?

While several weeks remain in this year’s hurricane season, it’s safe to say that with only nine named storms and four hurricanes to date, about half of what the preseason forecasts predicted, this year’s hurricane season will turn out to be far less active than the above average projections.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
You have questions, Brian has answers. It's time for today's
Q and A of today. This is the Brian Mud Show.
Today's Q and A talking about twenty three fives persistent
Saharan dusk. What does this rank? How unusual is what
we've experienced. This is brought to you by my listen
ashes check mark collections. Each day I feature a listener

(00:25):
question that is sent by one of these methods. You
may email me Brian Mud at iHeartMedia dot com, may
hit me up on social at Brian Mud Radio, or
use the Ihear Radio talkback feature. We love it. If
you go in there, make us your number one preset
Brian Mudshow Podcast number two preset. And while you're in there,
look for a little microphone button. See it, tap it.
You may lay down a message right there, maybe for

(00:46):
a future a Q and A. And there's one other
way to to go ahead and get your question, and
that's just a be jel.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah. I had posed this to you last week, Yes,
and I guess I kind of said I would to
do the talkback feature at the iHeart app.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, you didn't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I'm neglected to do it, so I'll do it. Right now.
I'll do it live. I'll do it live. All right.
So you talk about the Saharan dust, and usually, or
typically it is not here by what mid August something
like that. Here we are heading into the second week
of October and you're talking about another plume even coming

(01:26):
off of Africa, set to move across the Atlantic. So
how common is this? Was my question? Also, when was
the last time that we've seen this?

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, and so it is really unusual what's been going
on here. And with several weeks still in this year's
hurricane season, it remains to be seen exactly where the
ball is going to land, but we have a really
good idea about now. It's safe to say that, with
only nine name storms and four hurricanes today about half

(01:55):
of what the preseason forecast predicted, this year's hurricane season
is going to turn out to be far less active
than those above average projections. And it's also safe to
say that a significant reason that's going to be the
case the impact of Saharan dust. It is the ultimate
hurricane repellent. It's something I've talked about quite a bit
in recent years because research has shown that there is

(02:19):
nothing that is a greater inhibitor for hurricanes than Saharan dust,
and also plenty of indications that we have been receiving
more Saharan dust. You'll so often have all the forecasters
talk about climate change, global warming, what have you Well,
they've so often in their narrative missed something that is

(02:39):
a really important dynamic in the conversation. That tends to
be for every reaction, what an equal and opposite reaction? Right?
What has the opposite reaction been? Drier, hotter conditions in
Africa been kicking up more dust and what has that done? Well?
Some of what we've been seeing as I've covered, the

(03:02):
Saharan air layer, which surely moves between five thousand and
fifteen thousand feet above sea level, contains an average of
fifty percent less moisture and produces ever so slightly cooler
ocean temperatures. So the dust reflects some sunlight, also reflects
small parts of solar radiation, which can lead to slightly
cooler ocean temperatures than otherwise would be when the dust

(03:24):
is present. Most notably, recent studies have shown that the
Saharan dust has become the single biggest factor in whether
tropical formation takes place and how much rain is concentrated
in storms that do form, which also matters as well,
of course, because what is the biggest threat to hurricanes.
It's not the wind, it's the water. So it's not

(03:45):
necessarily unusual for saharan dust plumes to continue to kick
up into the month of October. We do have a
normal window for Atlantic the Atlantic saharan dust season running
May through October. What's a year usual is for saharan
dust to continue to make its way all the way
across the Atlantic. Typically what happens is it gets thinner

(04:07):
and thinner and thinner coming off the coast of Africa
to where if it is still round in October, it
doesn't even get towards the mid Atlantic, let alone over
to our side. So typically the crossing of the mid
Atlantic ends with saharan dust in late July or early August,

(04:28):
which I was referring to, leading not coincidentally to what
are typically the foremost active weeks of hurricane season, which
are the last two of August, in the first two
weeks of September, And not only is saharan dust still
making its way across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean,
it appears likely to continue into November, and so when

(04:49):
researching the Saharan air layer, there are a couple of
important timelines. Now, there isn't miserable information to compare prior
to the advent of the satellite age in nineteen sixty six. Edition.
Advances in satellite tracking for Saharan Dusk specifically were achieved
in two thousand, So historical comparisons are all based on
dates from nineteen sixty six through twenty twenty five, with

(05:10):
the best data that's been available over the past twenty
five years. Here's what we know. These are the years
that included trans atlantic Saharan dust activity as late as
November twenty twenty one, twenty twenty, twenty sixteen, two thousand
and eight, two thousand and six, nineteen eighty three, which

(05:35):
were determined was probably a good per year for Jill. Yeah,
I think so in nineteen seventy two, where you were
not yet permane right.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
What's interesting to me is joking aside eighty three to
what two thousand and six a long time. It's just
odd how that happens.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
So, should Saharan Dusk continue across the Atlantic in November,
as is now expected, it'll be come just the eighth
year out of the past fifty nine to have experienced
that much activity. However, for even greater context about where
this season can land, here's another factor to consider, whether
Saharan dust makes its way into the golf. That has

(06:17):
really been a key dynamic, right, because as we've seen
in recent years, where have the greatest hurricane threats been.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Coming from the golf?

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah? It hasn't been the Atlantic for a while, has it.
It's been the golf. And there are a lot of
factors that have played into why that's been the case,
But one of them has been the lack of Saharan dust. Now,
what has been the calmest region this hurricane season. It's
been the golf, hasn't it. Yeah, nothing's been calmer than

(06:45):
the golf. It's been downright quiet. There's been a reason
for it. Most of the plumes, and we have been
averaging about two a week, have made their way not
only across the Atlantic into the Caribbean, but also into
the Gulf of America. And that is far rareer than

(07:05):
even the eight that I had referenced. Only twice do
we have documented the late season saharan dust poems having
reached the golf the only two times twenty twenty one
in two thousand and eight that we have accounting of this.
And so what this means is that twenty twenty five

(07:26):
is on pace to have one of the three longest
Saharan dust seasons in recorded history. And also of note,
in two thousand and eight there were sixteen name storms
and eight hurricanes. In twenty twenty one twenty one name
storms and seven hurricanes. We're on pace for far fewer
storms and hurricanes than either of those years, meaning that

(07:49):
it's possible, and all is said and done, this could
be the most Saharan dust influenced hurricane season on record,
and time will tell. But what's certain is that what's
happened already has been historically unusual, and what's expected to
continue from here extremely rare.