Haze?

It's Sahara Dust, just rolled in overnight. Hopefully it will leave us soon! Last time we had a batch of this stuff it lasted quite a while, maybe 3 weeks if I am not mistaken.
BTW, have fun moving in and unpacking boxes....hehe:D
Cheryl

Hmmm, I don't think this is Africa coming for a visit. The Saharan air layer map doesn't show it. Looks more like water vapor + lack of normal trade wind pattern at the moment.

But I'm not a meteorologist so this opinion is worth the price charged.

I figured it was something like that... didnt see any news from Montserrat, so I was curious.

We moved in to our new place about 2 months ago. Just had a couple of bags to unpack, place was FULLY furnished 😎

NOT saharan dust - this is a marine layer causing the gloomy weather.

Whatever it is, it's a bit freaky having had the clearest view ever of STX two days ago from STJ -- and now I can barely see a mile out! Still waving; see you guys again one day.... 😉

On another thread it was confirmed as Sahara dust from some weather service or the other.

I must have arrived at the right time because I needed a double dose of heat and humidity coming from the desert...

No, that was my error Ronnie. The Sahara dust is E of 40W. This is not dust.

what is it?

OK, so not dust...what is it then? Marine layer? Where are we getting this info, storm pulse?

Maybe it's a layer of hot air from some of our more esteemed elected officials?? :@)

I have no idea, Tam. I haven't been able to find anything online. gcgem referred to it as a "marine layer." Perhaps gcgem will tell us more...

I'm not a meteorologist either, but imho it looks like dust - I use this chart to track the dust and the "blue" was not over us yesterday

Pia

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gc_wmb/dkim/web/html/dust_day.html

Here's the 5-day loop for the Saharan Air Layer Tracking

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/wavetrak/movies/m8g10split/m8g10splitjava5.html

Something funky about that loop. Go frame by frame and look what's going on along the SE coast of the mainland.

It sure feels like dust to me and my sinuses.

heard on radio and in the daily news its a toxic cloud from s. america. that is scary. wonder what is in it. it can't be good.

we sure breath alot of weird stuff on this island.......dust from africia......ash from volcano and now clouds from chavez.

upping my allergy meds. (tu)

I agree with FDR - we had the clearest views of STT, STJ, and BVI the few days leading up to this.

Yesterday afternoon NOAA radar showed a huge layer of water vapor over the area. The loop showed it being blown up from the SW.

It sure was weird. Late afternnon and early evening felt like I was sitting in a sci-fi movie.

Looking better today, though. And the breeze is back on STX. Yes!

The Daily News said dirty air, not toxic.

dirty-----toxic----dont want to breath either.

gone today. Hans Lollik has returned 🙂

That was so weird. The lack of a plausible explanation makes it even stranger.

A dirty cloud from S America? That makes no sense to me. Satellite images showed the blob over us for a full 9 hours before it joined the blob to our SW. In a single frame spanning a 3 hour period, the blob exploded and covered a huge chunk of our region. This all happened in a nearly windless environment.

I'm inclined to believe that we may have witnessed some sort of natural phenomenon such as gcgem suggested. I emailed Dave and Gert from stormcarib.com yesterday. Dave lives on STT. So far, I haven't received a response and they haven't posted anything on their site. An explanation sure would be nice....

I just heard from Dave at stormcarib.com. He's been off island with a spotty internet connection. His entire answer regarding the weather is as follows:

"Latest satellite I saw was upper level westerlies bringing soupy cloud cover over islands with little in way of precip."

Yeah, I'd say it was soupy....I just wonder what exactly the soup was made of? My eyes are feeling gritty and the throat hurts