Sahara Dust
Friday has been a hot, hazy day with very little visibility - but not really overcast weather. The reason for the haze has been a massive cloud of Sahara dust, pushed across the Atlantic Ocean by a tropical weather system.

This happens quite frequently; the dust has different colors, sometimes we find a red layer of dirt on our cars in the morning, sometimes more yellow colored - but always, these are particles of the great African desert that have traveled all the way to the Caribbean.

White dust - on one occasion so thick that it looked like snow - is caused by the still active volcano on the island of Montserrat. Only a few hundred miles away, this volcano is sometimes coughing up some good amounts of dirt, spreading it all over the North-Eastern Caribbean.
- posted by Jan @ 8:15 AM