'Godzilla Dust Cloud' From Sahara Desert Reaches Florida

FLORIDA — A giant cloud of dust from the Sahara Desert — dubbed by weather experts as the “Godzilla dust cloud” — has moved 5,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States and will affect Florida.

Officially, the cloud is known as the Saharan Air Layer, and it's carried from the coast of Africa across the Atlantic every three to five days from spring to early fall, with its density in mid-summer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Experts who nicknamed the event the “Godzilla dust cloud” warned people to stay indoors and use air filters if they have one, the Associated Press reported.

NASA models indicate that the peak of the dust will move over southern states from Friday through Monday. There will be enough dust in the air locally to improve the colors in the sunrise and sunset, according to projections.

"The main impacts of the Saharan dust will be hazy skies during the day, locally reduced visibility and degraded air quality," the Weather Prediction Center said. "However, this will also make for some very colorful sunrises and sunsets with deeper oranges and reds compared to normal."

By Friday and into Saturday, the dense plume will move across all of the southern U.S. Through the weekend, a denser concentration of dust will hang around Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, CNN reported.

There is an upside to the Sahara migration: Its dry air tamps down the development of tropical storms. Research from the NOAA suggests that the plume stifles hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.

National Weather Service officials said the layer is typically located between 5,000 and 20,000 feet above the Earth's surface, propelled westward by bursts of strong winds located in the central and western Atlantic at altitudes between 6,500 and 14,500 feet. It's been a highly visible phenomenon in Texas and along the Gulf coast of the United States in previous years.

However, this year, the cloud is historically wide, it's swirling farther northwards than is typical, and it's present at sea level all the way up to 20,000 feet.