Dust over south-eastern Europe
30 and 31 March 2022
In late March 2022, just days after much of Europe was covered by Saharan dust, parts of south-eastern Europe were again under the influence of a dust-infused system.
10 June 2022
31 March 2022
By Ivan Smiljanic (CGI)
The dust-infused system appeared as yellow to orange pockmarked clouds on the Meteosat-11 Severe Convection RGBs captured at 08:00 UTC on 30 and 31 March (Figure 1 and 2).
There are some indications that cloud systems dropped less rainfall than expected, which might be contributed to presence of dust in them. What is certain is that DIBS clouds (Dust-infused baroclinic cyclone storm) have much longer life time than comparable storm clouds with no dust, hence often contributing to additional errors in numerical weather prediction forecasts (e.g. prediction of maximum temperatures).
A view of the DIBS clouds through the NOAA-20 VIIRS Cloud Phase RGB product reveals both the cumuliform structure (to a lesser degree than in the SEVIRI images, due to a high Sun position around midday and absence of shadows), and the fact that ice crystals on top of these clouds are relatively small. Small crystals are seen in pale blue shades in this RGB scheme, compared to the darker blue ice clouds over Czechia for instance (water clouds are white to pink shades). This RGB product will soon to be available with future FCI instrument on board the MTG-I1 satellite.
