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The Mammoth Times is reporting that dust from China’s Gobi Desert has once again made it to the Eastern Sierra. The haze cloud of dust poured over Mammoth Pass on Sunday, April 20th. Here is more on the story from the Mammoth Times

“At first, local air pollution control district authorities thought the haze was smoke or agricultural dust, but then something about it didn’t seem right.

“When I came in this morning, I looked into it, and sure enough, it was Gobi Desert dust,” said Jon Bucknell, an air pollution control specialist with Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District in Bishop.

The storm in China actually started more than a month ago, raging across the huge desert beginning March 11.

“The gale force winds began on March 11, shrouding northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region under a thick veil of dust and sand,” according to a NASA article published March 23. “

Strong winds continued, lifting a massive cloud of tan dust from the Gobi Desert on March 16 and blowing it across northeast China on March 18.”

The Gobi Desert dust in the Eastern Sierra used to be an oddity, occurring only every few years, Bucknell said, but that seems to have changed.

“These storms used to only happen only every few years, but in the last four years, the only year that it hasn’t occurred is 2012,” he said.

Read the full article here – Dust from China Blankets the Eastern Sierra… Again 

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