Could tracking dust storms over Africa help predict hurricanes in the U.S.? Amato Evan thinks so. The University of Wisconsin researcher and his team have connected the dry, windswept plains of the Sahara to the intensity of the Atlantic hurricane season.
The hurricanes that hit North America and the Caribbean are spawned in the warm surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Dust from North Africaâ??generated by storms blowing from east to west across the Saharaâ??flows across the West African coast and out over the North Atlantic, “robbing the ocean of the sunlight that helps it to maintain its temperature or to warm in the summer,” Evan explains. Higher dust density over the Atlantic means cooler sea surface temperaturesâ??and weaker storms.