April 24, 2024 – 08:11
Desert dust covered Athens and several Greek cities, and this is one of the most dangerous cases since 2018, according to the Greek authorities. guardian. Yellow and orange fog clouds covered several areas in recent days, limiting visibility. Saharan dust was carried to Greece by strong southern winds, and authorities warned of great dangers to breathing.
“This is one of the most intense episodes due to the concentration of dust and sand from the Sahara Desert from March 21 to 22, 2018. Crete in particular was covered by clouds,” said Kosztas Lagovardos, director of weather research at the Athens Observatory.
The Sahara desert emits between 60 and 200 million tons of mineral dust every year, the largest particles quickly return to Earth, and the smallest can travel thousands of kilometers and even reach the whole of Europe. According to the Greek Meteorological Authority, skies will start to be clear on Wednesday.
A few weeks ago, the southern heat brought Saharan dust to Hungary, and we learned about it last year, when we wrote in detail about the fact that it is essentially a natural process, but something seems to have changed in the last decade . There is actually more Saharan dust in Europe, and air masses saturated with Saharan dust reach our country up to 10-12 times a year (but last year, for example, we recorded 16 such events). In our article, we looked at what this is all about.
