With Tropical Storm Kay putting swaths of Florida under water, our thoughts naturally turn to wondering how to most accurately predict the intensity of the hurricane season.
Enter University of Wisconsin researcher Amato Evan and his team, who are figuring out how the annual dust storms that blow over the Sahara factor into the tropical storms and hurricanes that lash the Americas.
My article about Evan's work appears today in Popular Mechanics online.
Favorite info-bit from Dr. Evan that didn't make it into the story:
"The Atlantic is the only ocean majorly affected by dust. It's a very different animal from the other oceans -- the major reason why is that there is this big desert sitting just up above it."
Image: "Dust Storm Off Western Sahara," Jan. 2008. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory -- click here to see larger version of the image.
