Asian Dust

It's quite impressive what some of those Asian dust storms can do, stripping dust from the loess plateaus of the Takla Makan, and other desert areas of China and Mongolia, and transporting it across eastern China, and from there, across the Pacific. The April, 1998 Asian storms caused PM10 concentrations to rise as high as 100 ug/m3 in British Columbia, with much of that being Asian dust: that's impressive! That's enough to affect the breathing of sensitive folks.

In New Mexico, sometimes we saw some impressive dust storms. I remember a big storm in April, 1974. Driving from Socorro to Carlsbad for Easter holiday on that murky day was pretty disorienting - surrounded by mountains, yet not a single one was in sight. Nevertheless, New Mexico storms don't amount to much compared to these Asian spectacles!