A Saharan dust cloud is expected to sweep across the country bringing enhanced sunsets and sunrises, the Met Office has said.
Dust clouds were predicted in parts of the country on Sunday evening, with others expected to witness the red dust on their cars and roads from Monday.
Last week the Met Office posted a satellite image of the huge dust cloud as it moved over Cape Verde and the west of Africa into the Atlantic.
Southerly winds will push some of the dust towards the UK later this weekend 👀
— Met Office (@metoffice) January 26, 2024
Watch out for enhanced sunsets and sunrises 🌄
Perhaps some dust deposits on cars with any passing rain 🚗 pic.twitter.com/DxnzPEe5ye
The forecaster wrote: “This amazing image captures a plume of Saharan dust moving out of Africa and into the Atlantic.
“Some of this dust will make its way towards us over the coming days…
“Southerly winds will push some of the dust towards the UK later this weekend.
“Watch out for enhanced sunsets and sunrises. Perhaps some dust deposits on cars with any passing rain.”
The phenomenon happens several times a year in the UK when big dust storms in the Sahara coincide with southerly wind patterns, according to the Met Office website.
Nick Finnis, a meteorologist with Netweather, earlier wrote on the service's blog: "The strengthening southerly wind on Sunday ahead of the cold front moving in from the west will also pull north Sahara dust that’s been spilling out of west Africa out across the Atlantic today.
"The dust load greatest across northern and western areas on Sunday – where the southerly wind will be strongest, before the greatest dust load shifts further south and east on Monday.
“Some of this dust will fall onto surfaces on the ground, such as cars, more particularly where rain is expected with an area of low pressure moving northeast... There is some uncertainty over the path of this rain across England and Wales for now."
Dust clouds turned the capital’s skyline orange, with social media flooded with eye-catching pictures of the skies above the capital, in 2022
The Saharan dust cloud was due to a storm system near Spain, a Met Office forecaster said at the time.
It comes as a village in the Scottish Highlands set the UK record for temperature in January after hitting 19.6C.
Kinlochewe recorded the temperature on Sunday, rising above the previous record of villages Inchmarlo and Aboyne in Aberdeenshire which hit 18.3C in 2003 while Aber, Ceredigion, reached the same level in both 1958 and 1971.
