On September 30, weather forecasters and ordinary citizens in eastern and northeastern regions of Ukraine recorded a serious deterioration of air quality due to a dust storm coming from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia.
This is reported by the Sumy hydrometeorological center in Telegram. Also numerous photos and videos post Ukrainians in social networks.
Weather forecasters say that the atmospheric vortex of dust and smog was “thrown” from the territory of Russia.
“If the dust was brought in from the Caspian Sea, then it could flow directly from them. There are now large-scale forest fires there. All this mixture of dust and smog was attracted by the southeast wind,” experts explain the reasons.
At the moment, the dust distribution and movement map, according to the Windly service, looks like this:
Screenshot from windly.com.
The SaveEcoBot service gives the following levels of air pollution by region:
Screenshot: saveecobot.com.
In Kharkov, local channels report that the city’s air is now dangerous for vulnerable groups:
Ukrainians are massively sharing photos and videos of what their cities look like this morning. They complain that the sun is almost invisible because of the smog, it’s hard to breathe, and everything around is covered with yellow dust.
According to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center, this situation will tentatively remain until Friday, when the wind direction in Ukraine will change to the south and west.
“Dust will reach us in waves, that is, improvements will alternate with deterioration in visibility and air quality,” say experts.
They predict that dust will fall into the territory of the Kyiv region on October 1 and 2, but its amount will be less. But they note that for the Kiev region, Chernihiv region and Sumy region, air quality may also deteriorate due to the movement of carbon monoxide with smoke, which will spread from beyond the borders of Ukraine from the northeast on October 1.
Experts recommend limiting your time outdoors and closing windows.
On September 23, EcoPolitic reported on another deterioration in air quality in Kyiv due to burning peat bogs and unfavorable weather conditions.
