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Blowing dust across parts of Illinois and Indiana

By Scott Bachmeier •

1-minute GOES-19 GeoColor RGB images, with either plots of surface observations or map labels, from 1900-2340 UTC on 04 May [click to play MP4 animation]

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) GeoColor RGB images (above) showed areas of blowing dust — lofted by strong southwest winds (with gusts in the 30-40 mph range) blowing across recently-plowed agricultural fields — that were being transported northeastward from central Illinois to northern Indiana on 04 May 2026.

A Blowing Dust Advisory had been issued for the entire region earlier in the day — and three Dust Storm Warnings were later issued for parts of central Illinois (below) as the plumes of blowing dust began to increase during the afternoon hours. Blowing dust reduced the surface visibility to 1.75 miles at Danville (KDNV), 5 miles at Rantoul (KTIP) and 7 miles at Kankakee (KIKK).

GOES-19 True Color RGB image at 2038 UTC on 04 May, with 3 Dust Storm Warning polygons (bold tan) that had been issued over central Illinois [click to enlarge]

1-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB  and Ash RGB images created using Geo2Grid (below) provided a comparison of the two RGB combinations — plumes of blowing dust were first apparent in the Ash RGB images (shades of magenta), but then the airborne dust exhibited a better signature in True Color RGB images (hazy shades of tan) later in the day as forward scattering increased from the GOES-19 satellite perspective.

1-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB (left) and Ash RGB images (right), from 1900 UTC on 04 May to 0000 UTC on 05 May [click to play animated GIF]

Categories: Air quality, Geo2Grid, GOES-19, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images