Sahara Desert dust plume crosses ocean and blankets Puerto Rico

A dense Saharan dust plume traveling across the Atlantic Ocean reached Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other areas in the Caribbean on Monday morning, June 22, and was expected to affect the southern United States later in the week.

The plume, known as the Saharan Air Layer (SAL), is usual for this time of year but the National Hurricane Center called this one "quite significant." 

The plume affecting the Caribbean emerged off western Africa last week and is now covering an area larger than the contiguous United States and Western Europe, according to forecasters.

A hazy dust plume over St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, June 22, 2020. (Courtesy of Amy Roberts)

One video shows the comparison between the morning of June 21 and the morning of June 22 in Yauco, Puerto Rico, west of Ponce after the dust arrived on the island.

"Your eyes burn," @RubenMarcucci7, the uploader, told Storyful. "You feel it in your lungs and the air feels really heavy, like the wind feels heavy."

The Gulf Coast is expected to experience the SAL later in the week.

Video shared online by Luis Davila showed the dust cloud shrouding the Port of San Juan Monday morning. The National Weather Service in San Juan reported that visibility dropped to five miles.

A satellite image of Saharan dust over islands in the Caribbean. (Via National Weather Service San Juan)