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Dust storms and sandstorms
Dust storms are created when strong winds pick up loose soil and dust, and carry
them for long distances. Similarly, sandstorms are created when strong winds pick up
sand from the desert and blow it miles and miles away.
Sands across the ocean…
Dust storms occur in places that are dry and have loose, unprotected soil.
They carry clay, dust, silt, and other matter. A dust storm can be
thousands of miles long and can be over ten thousand
feet in height.
A dust storm starts when the wind passing over
loose and dry particles increases in speed. The
particles begin to vibrate and then jump. As they
jump and fall, they disturb other particles, which are
then carried by the wind.
Winds lift sand from the
Sahara Desert, North Africa,
a few kilometres into the sky,
where it is reduced to finer
dust particles. This dust drifts
west towards Florida.
Starting in 1931, severe drought and dust storms
devastated the southern plains of the US.
More and more storms
Dust storms are becoming more common As forests are cut down, there are less trees to
all over the world as forests are being hold the loose soil together, causing destructive
cut and farming land is being left fallow, sandstorms.
without being used for long months.
The number of sandstorms in the Sahara
Desert has increased in the last fifty years.
Mauritania, a country lying close to the
Sahara, used to have only two sandstorms a
year. Now, it has over eighty.
TICKER Every spring, yellow dust storms occur in Korea and Japan, caused by sand blown in from the
Dust storms are created when strong winds pick up loose soil and dust, and carry
them for long distances. Similarly, sandstorms are created when strong winds pick up
sand from the desert and blow it miles and miles away.
Sands across the ocean…
Dust storms occur in places that are dry and have loose, unprotected soil.
They carry clay, dust, silt, and other matter. A dust storm can be
thousands of miles long and can be over ten thousand
feet in height.
A dust storm starts when the wind passing over
loose and dry particles increases in speed. The
particles begin to vibrate and then jump. As they
jump and fall, they disturb other particles, which are
then carried by the wind.
Winds lift sand from the
Sahara Desert, North Africa,
a few kilometres into the sky,
where it is reduced to finer
dust particles. This dust drifts
west towards Florida.
Starting in 1931, severe drought and dust storms
devastated the southern plains of the US.
More and more storms
Dust storms are becoming more common As forests are cut down, there are less trees to
all over the world as forests are being hold the loose soil together, causing destructive
cut and farming land is being left fallow, sandstorms.
without being used for long months.
The number of sandstorms in the Sahara
Desert has increased in the last fifty years.
Mauritania, a country lying close to the
Sahara, used to have only two sandstorms a
year. Now, it has over eighty.
TICKER Every spring, yellow dust storms occur in Korea and Japan, caused by sand blown in from the
