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Blood rain happens more often than you'd think.
Image credit: Natallia Ploskaya/shutterstock.com
Over the weekend, a lot of people living in the UK woke up and found their cars were dirtier than they would usually be.
Brits found a layer of dust covering their vehicles or windows. The dust, of course, did not target cars but cars are especially good at showing up the dirt.
So, what was the cause? Surprisingly to some, given the geographical distance involved, the dirt was carried from the Sahara Desert.
"As in other parts of the world, the wind can blow strongly over deserts - whipping up dust and sand high into the sky. If the winds in the upper part of the atmosphere are blowing north, the dust can be carried as far as the UK," the Met Office explains on their website.
"Once it is lifted from the ground by strong winds, clouds of dust can reach very high altitudes and be transported worldwide, covering thousands of miles."
The dust falls to the earth with water droplets and is known as "blood rain", due to its sometimes red appearance. Saharan dust makes it to the UK several times a year, and doesn't cause too much of a problem. In Africa, however, it's estimated that the seasonal dust (combined with human-made pollution) has knocked up to 4-5 years off life expectancy, most of it created in the Bodélé Depression which can create up to 700,000 tonnes of dust a day during the winter.
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