Smoke, dust from Russia, Mongolia dim skies over Alaska
Originally published Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 6:00 a.m.
Updated Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 1:26 p.m.
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ANCHORAGE — The haze that crept into Alaska in the last few days is not what you might think. It is smoke and dust from Russia.
The smoke is coming from Russian wildfires, and the dust is from sandstorms in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert. Satellite images prove it, showing a whitish-yellow haze stretching east from China and Russia into Southcentral Alaska.
Gerry Guay, manager of the state’s Air Monitoring and Quality Assurance Program, said the haze extends from Fairbanks to Kodiak, and from Valdez to the Aleutian Islands.
“It’s one of the biggest clouds of dust I’ve seen on the satellite images in a while,” Guay said. “It covered a fairly extensive area.”
Sand storms in the Gobi Desert are common this time of year, but the storms are particularly bad this spring, said Catherine Cahill, a researcher with the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
Local dust kicked up by vehicles or construction can contribute to low-altitude air problems, but it generally doesn’t rise enough to obscure mountains, Guay said. For that to happen, high winds are needed to fling dust into the air.
Those strong winds arise during sand storms in the Gobi Desert that often assault neighboring areas with drifting grit dubbed Kosa, meaning “yellow sand,” by the Japanese, whose islands it frequently crosses, Cahill said.
Such storms are common through April and May, and the dust routinely reaches Alaska and beyond, she said.
“Pretty much every spring, we get a huge amount of dust from the Gobi Desert. Some years we get more dust than others. This is definitely a worse year,” Cahill said.
But not the worst in recent years. The spring of 2001 was the fourth-dustiest on record in Asia, with dust particles drifting across the entire U.S. and even into Greenland, Cahill said.
The Itar-Tass news agency reported this week that more than 100 forest fires were burning in four regions of Russia. The massive fires got started last week.
Community Discussion
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If 100 firefighters are burning, evidently in 4 different regions, shouldn't someone over there help them.
Feel sorry for those 100 "firefighters" burning in russia...
I wouldnt want to be a firefighter in Russia. Since they are still burning they must have been loaded with Russian vodka .
Tough job being a firefighter.
Maybe a tougher job being a copy editor?
This is the quality of our Fairbanks news. I noticed the other day that the word Canadians was spelled Canadiens. I'm pretty sure its spelled Canadians. I think they need an editor. Or do they have one?
It's a article off of the Associated Press wire people, you are criticizig the wrong folks.
Russian planes flying near Alaska's coast and now smoke invasion from them!? :)
Stan, even stories off the wire services should be copyedited. I hate to add my comment to the firestorm but someone in our office printed this story off and brought it to show me because it is so funny. I'm in your corner, FDN-M folks, but c'mon! Someone needs to READ them before they're posted to the web!
Ahh. This is what happens when I edit too early in the morning. Thanks all for pointing that out. I will fix it.
daisy518_97 - Was the article about hockey? Because Canadiens is the name of a Canadian hockey team -- Montreal's team to be specific.
It's OK, Julie. I've done MUCH worse. Hopefully not today. :-)
The Ruskies are coming!
Sounds like they are here! Well, at least nobody is saying it threatens polar bears.
It threatens the polar bears. It makes it hard for them to breathe. Smoke from firefighters is very toxic.
EPA should get them
Griff is right. The article was talking about the Montreal Canadiens. Their team name is spelled with an "ie". That's why it was like that in the headline.
Here's their Web site if anyone wants to check for themselves: http://canadiens.nhl.com/index.html
Griffisusuallyright!
aaak!
Griff needs to buy a new hat, several sizes bigger than before.
Ya gotta admit, it was funnier when the firefighters were burning...
I really LOVE reading the comments we are allowed to make now :oD
The paper is soo much more interesting to read these days!
It's the JET stream - my Mom used to study it to see when we'd get some more snow for the ski area! :)
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