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China Dust Storm, August 11, 2001 |
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From Dr. Derbyshire: My Chinese colleague at in the Centre for Quaternary Research at Royal Holloway (Univ. London), Dr. Xingmin Meng, returned from a family holiday in China just over a week ago. He and his wife were caught up in two dust storms in the month of August. The first was at Zhengye (in the middle of the Hexi Corridor of western Gansu) on 11 August. When the second occurred (on 28 August), they were further east (at Lanzhou). They tell me that they used the windscreen wipers to get back to their hotel, just as if it were heavy snow. I am interested in the trajectories of dust palls over China, and should be interested to know about any other reports you may have received on these events. I should also be most interested to know if there are any good quality satellite images of these events.
From Dr. Meng: Here are the photos I took on the day of 11th August when I travelled along the Hexi corridor: The photos with clear sky were taken about two hours before we met dust storm. We didn't see cold front. It was a very hot and bright day before the dust storm, the temperature being about 35 Celsius. Few minutes before seeing the storm, we had experienced strong wind, and then the sky gradually became yellow and dark accompanied with temperature dropping down. The storm started at about 5pm and finished at around midnight.
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| Surface Observation Loop. Several dust observations evident at 12Z on the 11th and 12th. Zhangye is the station with the cyan colored circle (high extinction) around it. It shows dust lifting in the past and present weather report. | SeaWiFS. Zhangye is just north of the small bright green spot located down and left from the center of the image. Imagery shows swift passage of cold front, but we cannot see dust. | NOGAPS Weather Simulation. There is a small area of high wind stress (red shading) at Zhangye at 06Z on the 11th and 12th. | NAAPS Aerosol Simulation. A small dust cloud is produced by the high wind stress at 06Z on the 11th and 12th. | NAAPS/Sat Comparison |
Last updated September 17, 2001
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