(Trinidad Express) There are currently high concentrations of Saharan dust within Trinidad and Tobago’s atmosphere.

On June 18, one of NASA’s satellites captured a “light brown plume of Saharan dust over the North Atlantic Ocean,” that extended from the African West Coast to the Lesser Antilles.

According to a TTMS blog post on Friday, Saharan dust transportation to the Caribbean is due to a dry layer of air that is formed over the Sahara Desert.

“This layer of dusty, very dry and warm air is pushed westward by the easterly winds and, on reaching the west African coast or eastern Atlantic Ocean, it rides over the cooler, more moist surface air of the Atlantic Ocean, forming what is called an atmospheric inversion layer or boundary: with warm, dry air aloft and cooler, moist air below,” said the post.

“Once the SAL reaches the Atlantic, the easterly trade winds continue to carry this dust across the Atlantic at the lower and mid-levels, where eventually some of it, oftentimes large pools of it, lands over Trinidad and Tobago and the southern Caribbean.