A dust devil is a strong, well-formed, and relatively short-lived whirlwind. Its size ranges from small to large. The primary vertical motion is upward. Dust devils are usually harmless, but can on rare occasions grow large enough to pose a threat to both people and property.
The Dust Bowl was the result of a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors and man-made factors: a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion, most notably the destruction of the natural topsoil by settlers in the region. The drought came in three waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as long as eight years.
A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transported by saltation and suspension, a process that moves soil from one place and deposits it in another.
Mars 3 was a robotic space probe of the Soviet Mars program, launched May 28, 1971, nine days after its twin spacecraft Mars 2. The probes were identical robotic spacecraft launched by Proton-K rockets with a Blok D upper stage, each consisting of an orbiter and an attached lander. After the Mars 2 lander crashed on the Martian surface, the Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to attain a soft landing on Mars, on December 2, 1971. It failed 110 seconds after landing, having transmitted only a gray image with no details. The Mars 2 orbiter and Mars 3 orbiter continued to circle Mars and transmit images back to Earth for another eight months.
A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning, heavy precipitation, heavy freezing rain, strong winds, wind transporting some substance through the atmosphere such as in a dust storm, among other forms of severe weather.
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost all of them disintegrate and never hit the Earth's surface. Very intense or unusual meteor showers are known as meteor outbursts and meteor storms, which produce at least 1,000 meteors an hour, most notably from the Leonids. The Meteor Data Centre lists over 900 suspected meteor showers of which about 100 are well established. Several organizations point to viewing opportunities on the Internet. NASA maintains a daily map of active meteor showers.
Opportunity, also known as MER-B or MER-1, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until 2018. Opportunity was operational on Mars for 5111 sols. Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin, Spirit (MER-A), touched down on the other side of the planet. With a planned 90-sol duration of activity, Spirit functioned until it got stuck in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, while Opportunity was able to stay operational for 5111 sols after landing, maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power. This careful operation allowed Opportunity to operate for 57 times its designed lifespan, exceeding the initial plan by 14 years, 47 days. By June 10, 2018, when it last contacted NASA, the rover had traveled a distance of 45.16 kilometers.
Aeolian processes, also spelled eolian, pertain to wind activity in the study of geology and weather and specifically to the wind's ability to shape the surface of the Earth. Winds may erode, transport, and deposit materials and are effective agents in regions with sparse vegetation, a lack of soil moisture and a large supply of unconsolidated sediments. Although water is a much more powerful eroding force than wind, aeolian processes are important in arid environments such as deserts.
A shamal is a northwesterly wind blowing over Iraq and the Persian Gulf states, often strong during the day, but decreasing at night. This weather effect occurs from once to several times a year, mostly in summer, but sometimes in winter. The resulting wind typically creates large sandstorms that impact Iraq, most sand having been picked up from Jordan and Syria.
Asian Dust is a meteorological phenomenon that affects much of East Asia year-round and especially during the spring months. The dust originates in the deserts of China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, where high-speed surface winds and intense dust storms kick up dense clouds of fine, dry soil particles. These clouds are then carried eastward by prevailing winds and pass over China, North and South Korea, and Japan, as well as parts of the Russian Far East. Sometimes, the airborne particulates are carried much further, in significant concentrations which affect air quality as far east as the United States.
The climate of Mars has been a topic of scientific curiosity for centuries, in part because it is the only terrestrial planet whose surface can be directly observed in detail from the Earth with help from a telescope.
The climate of the north and central parts of the US state of Florida is humid subtropical. South Florida has a tropical climate. There is a defined rainy season from May through October when air mass thundershowers that build in the heat of the day drop heavy but brief summer rainfall.
Pakistan's climate is a continental type of climate, characterized by extreme variations in temperature, both seasonally and daily, because it is located on a great landmass north of the Tropic of Cancer.
Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935 as part of the Dust Bowl in the United States. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage. It is estimated to have displaced 300 thousand tons of topsoil from the prairie area.
The Olympica Fossae are a set of troughs in the Tharsis quadrangle of Mars at 25° north latitude and 114.1° west longitude. They are about 420 km long and were named after an albedo feature at 17N, 134W. Parts of the fossae have been suggested to be both outflow channels as well as channels for flowing lava, routing both molten rock and catastrophic outburst floods of water at different times in Mars' geological past.
Martian dust devils were first photographed by the Viking orbiters on Mars in the 1970s. In 1997, the Mars Pathfinder lander detected a dust devil passing over it. In the first image below, photographed by the Mars Global Surveyor, the long dark streak is formed by a moving swirling column of Martian atmosphere. The dust devil itself is climbing the crater wall. The streaks on the right are sand dunes on the crater floor.
The 2009 Australian dust storm, also known as the Eastern Australian dust storm, was a dust storm that swept across the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland from 22 to 24 September 2009. The capital, Canberra, experienced the dust storm on 22 September, and on 23 September the storm reached Sydney and Brisbane. Some of the thousands of tons of dirt and soil lifted in the dust storm were dumped in Sydney Harbour and the Tasman Sea.
A dust storm warning is issued by the National Weather Service in the United States when blowing dust is expected to frequently reduce visibility to 1⁄4 mile (400 m) or less, generally with winds of 25 miles per hour (40 km/h) or more.
Opportunity is a robotic rover that was active on the planet Mars from 2004 to 2018. Launched on July 7, 2003, Opportunity landed on Mars' Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, at 05:05 Ground UTC, three weeks after its twin Spirit (MER-A), also part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission, touched down on the other side of the planet. While Spirit became immobile in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, Opportunity exceeded its planned 90 sol duration of activity by 14 years 46 days. Opportunity continued to move, gather scientific observations, and report back to Earth until 2018. What follows is a summary of events during its continuing mission.
From 2 to 3 May 2018, high-velocity dust storms swept across parts of North India. 125 people died and over 200 were injured.
