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If you have recently cleaned your car, you may regret waking up this morning. Fifteen days after the end of the last episode, the sands of the Sahara returned to France this Tuesday. Also known as “Cherokee”, this meteorological event features hot air laden with sand dust from the Sahara Desert.
What to expect?
According to Météo France, this chapter should be “less intense”. So it is not certain that your cars will be completely covered in yellow-orange dust. But it will rain again in the episode, which will lead to sand particles depositing on the ground and vehicles.
Three areas will be mainly affected: Occitania, Provence-Alps-C -te d’Azur and New Aquitaine. The episode should only last two days, unlike the one that aired fifteen days ago at five.
The episode has already hit southern Europe since last Thursday. Images shared on social media in southern Spain show the most visible chapter.
Why such a frequency?
Sahara sand has been present in France on several occasions since the beginning of 2022: early February, then early March and a fortnight ago. If these episodes are known more and more, their frequency is not uncommon. If it is to be observed, the sand of the Sahara, in the form of a deposit, should be with a little good rainfall.
“This is a well-known phenomenon in the Mediterranean, and less so in the north, and does not indicate an increase in its increased media coverage of events this month,” Météo-France explained in mid-March. Western France. The Parisian Indicates that between six and seven identical episodes were recorded between February and June 2021.
Nevertheless, the sequence of these “Cherokee” episodes can be explained by global warming. Nearby ParisianPaul Marquis, head of the e-meteo service, notes that “the depressions are closer to the Maghreb area than ever before, and we need to get used to it.” The Barcelona Atmospheric Dust Prediction Center, which monitors the occurrence of sand and dust storms in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe, believes that global warming may increase the frequency and intensity of these events.
The Copernican Atmospheric Monitoring Service confirms that “these episodes of Sahara dust occur frequently in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, where they play a role in the ecosystem of the ocean and Amazon rainforest.”
