By Stephen Smoot
Those who came to Franklin March 7 to watch the Wildcats down the Union Tigers found evidence of a rare meteorological phenomenon on their vehicles – the dried remnants of a “mud rain.”
Last week, a powerful dust and sand storm stirred up dirt from the ground in eastern New Mexico and the northern panhandle of Texas, driving particles into the atmosphere. Prolonged drought, according to Newsweek, made “the region more susceptible to dust storms.”
Winds that topped 60 miles per hour drove the huge mass of airborne particles into the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, region, turning the 2 p.m. sky to almost alien hues of gray and orange while dropping visibility to two miles. A regional outlet compared the sky colors to those on Mars.
Atmospheric winds drove the dust, dirt, and sand across the midsection of the country. Water condensed around the free floating particles, which gave them sufficient weight to fall from the sky as rain as the weather event traveled from west to east.
The Mason County Division of Homeland Security provided one of the first reports of the phenomenon, stating, “We are receiving multiple calls asking about what was falling out of the sky.” The post informed people about the source of the problem and said, “This should cause no concern or danger to anyone.”
WOWK, a television station covering Charleston and Huntington, stated that the dirt was in the air over West Virginia for approximately 120 hours at nearly 20,000 feet.
One of the only effects lay in the rain quickly evaporating, leaving vehicles and other objects covered in thick dirt.
The Pendleton County Office of Emergency Management and 911 Facebook page also shared reports of the incident.
Mud rain or dust laden skies happen rarely, but are not unknown. In many cases, dust storms in the Sahara Desert of Africa can also drive dirt into wind currents that may bring it to skies over West Virginia.
