African dust: Kolydas explains how the eerie orange color came about on Tuesday

“Especially for Athens, it is the most intense event”, notes the EMY director in his post.

The fact that it hasn’t rained recently in Attica, according to Thodoris Kolidas, is one of the main reasons for the eerie landscape that prevailed on Tuesday in the basin due to the African dust.

In his latest post on his personal Twitter account, the director of EMY Thodoris Kolidas explains for what reasons, in his opinion, the orange color was created in the atmosphere of Athens on Tuesday afternoon. According to what he claimed, a big role was played by the fact that there was no rain for many days and so “the dust was not washed away” and hung in the atmosphere for several days.

“The “spooky” color was created due to the scattering of light, where an important role was played by the time when the maximum transport occurred, which coincided with the sunset,” he added in his post.

Thodoris Kolydas’ new post about African dust

“We saw the long journey of dust in the previous post. In the second photo we can see that there were very large gatherings today at noon in Kiev in Ukraine. Europe and our country with the new Copernicus satellite photos from Sentinel5 has the ability to visualize dust concentrations even with cloud cover. It is a great gain for the correct information and information of the citizens. I have researched historical evidence of cases of large dust transports which I am passing on to you. Most of them are recorded in my personal diary as I experienced them during the EMY shift. If another colleague knows of another case, it is welcome to add it”, says Thodoris Kolidas initially in his post.

“In detail, we have March 7, 1902, March 28, 1931, April 23, 1965, April 14, 2008, May 21, 2008 and April 17, 2005 (third photo). They also exist on 2/25/2001, 2/24/2006, 3/6/2009, 5/21/2008 and 11/10/2010. My personal opinion is that especially for Athens it is the most intense event as I mentioned to @Starchannelnew1. A big role was played by the fact that there was no rain – as it usually happens -, so the dust was not “washed out” and remained suspended in the atmosphere for a long time. The “spooky” color was created due to the scattering of light, where an important role was played by the time when the maximum of the transfer occurred which coincided with the sunset“, concluded.