This morning the largest dust outbreak in 2 years is occurring across the Sahara Desert. The eruption began yesterday morning in Algeria and has now expanded to four major dust sources in Algeria, Niger, and Chad, and possibly Mauritania today The dust from Algeria and Mali is expected to have a major effect on Senegal and Cabo Verde, likely closing some airports but bring very unhealthy air to millions of people in the next 48 hours.
The Air Quality is gotten considerably worst since last night with poor air quality in Northern Senegal. We expect this to worsen during the afternoon and tonight.
Big dust Event for Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea countries starting tonight.
The Bodele will come alive for the next 10 days or so, bringing the largest dust amounts into all of Nigeria by Thursday morning, impacting its 200 million inhabitants. The dust is expected to reach Lagos and the coastal zones. This dust will then settle in across Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Ivory Coast during the next 3-5 days. This is depicted in the Model forecast from last week.
Extreme Caution during COVID-19 is required
Science is presenting mounting evidence that poor air quality makes COVID-19 spread faster and causes more serious forms of COVID. What we still don’t know is about the short-term exposure to high pollution. The poor air quality is likely to force more people indoors so please wear your mask when you go to indoor locations that are outside of your home.
Be Safe, we will be watching this event.