BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - A burst of Saharan dust moving across the Atlantic recently made headlines as it tracked closer to parts of the U.S. coastline. I caught up with Dr. Paul Miller from the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at LSU to talk more about the dust.

WHY IS SAHARAN DUST BAD FOR TROPICAL SYSTEMS?

According to Dr. Miller, multiple factors associated with Saharan dust can inhibit the development or growth of tropical systems.

“Just by virtue of all this air originating over a desert, it’s fairly hot and dry. Additionally, the trade winds that carry the SAL across the Atlantic tend to act as a source of shear for any forming tropical cyclones as well. Also, Saharan air, because of the presence of all the dust, it sort of acts as a shade over the ocean.”

DOES DU

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