An episode of sand from the Sahara will affect part of southern Europe this weekend before moving towards France in the middle of the week.
Strongly affected by a particularly intense episode of Sahara dust last weekend, the south of France will once again be covered with a thin film of sand coming from the African desert in the coming days.
This Thursday, this dust cloud reached its peak over part of southern Europe but remained concentrated mainly in eastern Italy. Pollution alerts have therefore been issued for Greece, Cyprus and western Turkey, which are the regions most affected by this new episode.
This weekend, France will be cut in two with very unsettled weather in the North-West while the southern and eastern regions will gradually be influenced by slightly warmer air. This Saturday, Perpignan should experience its hottest day of the year so far when temperatures will exceed 30°C.
After this weekend, we will not have to wait long to see the fourth episode of June cross the Mediterranean since a new cloud loaded with sand will return from the middle of next week and in particular over a large part of the south of the France.
A new episode which is not surprising since, according to data relayed by the Copernicus organization in February 2024, atmospheric circulation has changed and is now more conducive to the arrival of sand clouds in Western Europe.
Thus, the number of sand clouds crossing Western Europe has significantly increased between 2020 and 2022, compared to previous years.
