Yellow dust descends on eastern UK by Sean Batty
Over the last few days the Met Office has been receiving a spate of calls from the public informing them of a mysterious yellow dust covering their cars and windows. Reports came in from concerned members of the public living in East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and even as far inland as West Yorkshire and Derbyshire.
A new generation of high resolution satellite cameras has confirmed a cloud of 'yellow dust', which can be clearly seen on the satellite picture on the link at the top right hand side of this page, extending from the Low Countries and northern Germany right across to Scotland.
The Met Office has said that this 'cloud' is probably a combination of pollen and smoke which has been blown across the North Sea from Europe.
The first ingredient, smoke, can be attributed to the large number of seasonal fires across the fields of western Russia.
The second ingredient, pollen, has been particularly high this year, especially in Denmark, where a record level was reported on Sunday the 7th of May, breaking the previous record set back in 1993. The high pollen levels have been linked to 'perfect weather conditions’, which are, a wet April followed by a warm sunny start to May. These conditions induce the growth of catkins on the trees, in turn increasing the number of pollen grains released.
This cocktail gathered over Europe has then been dragged towards the UK on a slack easterly. This could possibly be one explanation as to why the small number of people in the UK who suffer from a tree pollen allergy have been suffering particularly badly recently.
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