Abstract
The local strong sandstorms (LSS), similar to haboobs in Sahara and the North America, often occur suddenly, in tens of minutes during the late afternoon, and before dusk in deserts in China, causing a significant impact on the local atmospheric environment. The Sudan haboob or American haboob often appears in the wet season, followed by thunderstorm events. In contrast, the LSS in China appears most frequently in relatively dry season. The lack of observational data in weather conditions before their formation, during their development and after their disappearance have hindered our understanding of the evolution mechanism of LSS/haboobs. This paper provides a review of the current status and model studies on LSS/haboobs in different time and space to characterize the weather conditions and triggering mechanisms for LSS/haboobs occurrence, as well as highlight the subject for further understanding of LSS/haboobs. LSS are always followed by the occurrence of a dry squall. The interaction of dust radiation heating in the near-surface mixing layer with a mesoscale anticyclone air mass (cold-air pool) in the upper layer is the key process that leads to an LSS. Haboobs are followed by the occurrence of a wet squall. The release of latent heat due to the condensation of water vapor, involving moist convection and cold downdraughts, is the main driving force that cause the occurrence of a haboob. For a better understanding of the characteristics of the wind-sand two-phase flow and the mechanism of energy dissipation in LSS/haboobs, further accumulation of meteorological observation data and small-scale multiple-phase numerical simulations are required.
Highlights
Sandstorms are severe weather events that can often be observed in the arid, semiarid and adjacent regions
The findings showed that a thermal low formed over Syria on 6 September 2015 was associated with a strong cloud convection and provided favorable conditions for the generation of a haboob along the borders between Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria on 7 September 2015
The results showed that the WRF-Chem model was able to capture the spatio-temporal pattern of the haboob, but largely underestimated the magnitude of surface dust concentration and aerosol optical depth
Summary
Sandstorms are severe weather events that can often be observed in the arid, semiarid and adjacent regions. Other studies showed depths of up to 4 km [32] These cold pools form the key precursor to the mechanism that generates strong winds with a consequent dust uplift from the surface to cause the haboob occurrence [31,33,34,35]. Raman et al [36] used satellite, radar and ground-based observations to determine the state and fate of a haboob, which occurred in Phoenix on 5 July 2011 Their findings suggested that the haboob was a result of strong outflow boundaries from thunderstorms, which have been developed in the southeast of Tucson. The occurrences of haboobs over the desert areas in northern Africa, Middle East and southwestern North-America were both driven by cold pool outflows that act as density currents and are often produced from the downdraughts of moist convective. The passage of a cold pool is generally associated with a short-lived pressure rise, an increase in wind speed and a shift in wind direction
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