{"id":70390,"date":"2026-05-12T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=70390"},"modified":"2026-05-15T14:14:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T14:14:56","slug":"blowing-dust-across-parts-of-the-upper-midwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/70390","title":{"rendered":"Blowing dust across parts of the Upper Midwest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div style=\"width: 3610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_goes19_trueColorRGB_ashRGB_Upper_Midwest.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_goes19_trueColorRGB_blowing_dust_anim.mp4_combined_horizontally_with_260512_goes19_ashRGB_blowing_dust_anim.mp4_fr000150.png\" width=\"3600\" height=\"1600\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-19 True Color RGB images (left) and Ash RGB images (right), from 1600 UTC on 12 May to 0036 UTC on 13 May [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 <em>(GOES-East)<\/em>\u00a0True Color RGB and Ash RGB images created using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/software\/geo2grid\/\"><strong>Geo2Grid<\/strong><\/a> <em><strong>(above)<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0showed plumes of blowing dust that were lofted by <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_pns_winds.text\"><strong>strong winds<\/strong><\/a> on the back side of a midlatitude cyclone on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov\/dailywxmap\/index_20260512.html\"><strong>12 May 2026<\/strong><\/a>. The surface source of much of this blowing dust was recently-plowed agricultural fields in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p>Note that the leading edge of one of the blowing dust plumes was beginning to move over the &#8220;4 lakes&#8221; area of Madison in southern Wisconsin near the end of the day (<a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_goes19_trueColorRGB_blowing_dust_anim.mp4_combined_horizontally_with_260512_goes19_ashRGB_blowing_dust_anim.mp4_fr000230.png\"><strong>0036 UTC images<\/strong><\/a>). A vertically-pointing <a href=\"https:\/\/hsrl.ssec.wisc.edu\"><strong>lidar<\/strong><\/a> on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus depicted an increase in boundary layer aerosol loading (shades of orange) from 2300 UTC on 12 May to 0200 UTC on 13 May <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 747px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_Madison_lidar_linearDepolarization.jpg\" width=\"737\" height=\"386\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Plot of lidar Linear Depolarization at Madison, Wisconsin from 1800 UTC on 12 May to 0500 UTC on 13 May<\/p><\/div>\n<p>GOES-19 Ash RGB images that included outlines of counties affected by a NWS-issued <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_1501utc_g19_ashRGB_wind_advisory_ND_MN.png\"><strong>Wind Advisory<\/strong><\/a> and\/or <a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_1906utc_g19_ashRGB_blowing_dust_advisory_MN.png\"><strong>Blowing Dust Advisory<\/strong><\/a> are shown below. At times the Blowing Dust Advisories covered parts of I-29 in North Dakota as well as I-94 and I-90 in Minnesota.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 3034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_goes19_ashRGB_nwsAdvisories.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/05\/260512_2106utc_g19_ashRGB_nws_advisories.png\" width=\"3024\" height=\"1798\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">GOES-19 Ash RGB images with an overlay of NWS Wind Advisories (open beige counties) and Blowing Dust Advisories (shaded beige counties), from 1501 UTC on 12 May to 0101 UTC on 13 May [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East)\u00a0True Color RGB and Ash RGB images created using Geo2Grid (above)\u00a0showed plumes of blowing dust that were lofted by strong winds on the back side of a midlatitude cyclone on 12 May 2026. The surface source of much of this blowing dust was recently-plowed agricultural fields in North Dakota, South Dakota [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":70391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,132,159,53,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-quality","category-geo2grid","category-goes-19","category-real-earth","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70390"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70403,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70390\/revisions\/70403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}