NewsTracker Answers for week of June 29, 2020

Q: Winds have swept an unusually thick, nearly 5,000-mile-long plume of dust from the Sahara Desert to the blanket the Caribbean and the states along the Gulf of Mexico. Where is the Sahara Desert?

Circle the area on this map


Q: The Sahara is the world’s ..

A. Largest desert

B. Largest hot desert

C. Driest desert

D. All of the above


B. Africa’s great Sahara Desert is the world’s largest hot desert and third largest desert overall after Antarctica and the Arctic. The Atacama Desert in South America is the driest non-polar desert in the world, receiving less precipitation than all other deserts. Some weather stations in the Atacama have never recorded precipitation.


Q: It took about a week for the gigantic dust plume to reach the U.S. mainland. How many states border the Gulf of Mexico?

A. Three

B. Four

C. Five

D. Six


C. The states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida border the Gulf on the north. The dust clouded the air in those states over the weekend, but the plume was moving inland and could reach as far as southern Illinois and Ohio. Saharan dust plumes are annual events but this could be the largest in 50 years.


Q: The dust cloud can be an allergen and a hazard to people with asthma or other breathing problems. What is a positive impact of the cloud?

A. Limits hurricanes

B. Limits global warming

C. Brings more rain

D. Brings cool breezes


A. The dry layer of air which brings the dust across the Atlantic Ocean suppress the development of tropical storm systems that turn into hurricanes, according to the National Weather Service. But, it is a short-term effect. The hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.


Q: Many of the Atlantic storms that become hurricanes follow same path as the dust cloud. How fast must the wind be blowing before a tropical storm is considered a hurricane?

A. 39 mph

B. 74 mph

C. 96 mph

D. 111 mph


B. A cyclone in the Atlantic is considered a tropical storm when it has one-minute maximum sustained winds of at least 39 mph. It becomes a Category 1 hurricane when wind speeds hit 74 mph. Category 2 hurricanes start at 96 mph; Category 3 at 111 mph: Category 4 at 131mph; and devastating Category 5 storms have winds of more than 155 mph.