Weather: a rain of sand from the Sahara colors the sky with an ocher hue

“When I took my scooter this afternoon, it had changed color”. If, like Maxime, the appearance of your vehicle surprised you this Tuesday, don’t panic… a veil of Saharan sand is in the process of inviting itself into our sky. “Since yesterday, an episode of dust raised by a powerful flow from the south from Morocco has been sweeping France,” explains Guillaume Séchet of Météo Villes. This phenomenon is very massive and will reach its peak tomorrow, with a sky in Paris that will be very milky, a little phosphorescent before clearing under the effect of North-East winds”.

The phenomenon has occurred several times in the past year and is occurring again. France is affected on Tuesday and these episodes of orange skies will continue on Wednesday and Thursday morning.

The most visible features are an ocher colored sky. The snow, when there is some, which is dyed the same color in the mountain ranges and on cars in places where it rains, deposits a film of sand. Meteorologist Guillaume Séchet relays this animation which shows the progression of sand particles.

This type of sand rain is caused by a degraded weather situation which is currently affecting the coast of Morocco with a conflict of air masses between the warm air of the Sahara and that, cooler, of a depression at the level of the Canary Islands. A pump phenomenon is set up and causes the rise of hot air loaded with particles in countries further north.

Conflict between hot air above and the ground

As AFP explains, storms in the Sahara desert create gusts of wind that raise sand dust. The smallest particles remain in suspension thanks to a temperature difference between the hot air above and the ground, which cools, while the heavier ones fall back. Among the striking images of this beginning of the day, certain areas of the Pyrenees look more like dunes than ski slopes.