Skies Over Athens Turn a Martian Orange Amid Saharan Dust Storm

The city of Athens was transformed into an orange, Mars-like landscape this week as strong winds carried in clouds of dust from the Sahara Desert. The Greek capital’s buildings, homes, mountains and famous historic sites became draped in a low-light, pumpkin glow on Tuesday.

“It’s one of the most serious episodes of dust and sand concentrations from the Sahara since March 21-22, 2018, when the clouds invaded the island of Crete in particular,” Kostas Lagouvardos, a meteorologist and research director at the Athens Observatory, tells the Agence France-Presse and Associated Press.

By Wednesday morning, the Acropolis was no longer visible, hidden in the cloud of dust. Lagouvardos, in a translated Facebook post, described the city as “our colony on Mars.”

Dust storms in the Sahara are relatively common. The world’s largest hot desert, the Sahara releases an average of 182 million tons of mineral dust each year—enough to fill 689,290 semi trucks, according to NASA. The smallest of these particles can get swept up by the wind and travel great distances: Approximately 22,000 tons of Saharan dust reach as far as the Amazon each year, and the phosphorus in these particles helps fertilize the rainforest’s soil.

This week, a low pressure system in north Africa gave rise to powerful winds from the south, blowing Saharan dust particles across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe, per BBC News’ George Wright. Clouds of Saharan dust have been getting carried to parts of Greece—as well as Switzerland, Germany and France—for the past several weeks.

While dust clouds are a semi-regular occurrence in Greece, that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. On Tuesday, according to IQAir, Athens’ air quality index (AQI) spiked to 131 around 11 a.m. local time—a level deemed “unhealthy for sensitive groups” and well above the “good” (0 to 50) and “moderate” (51 to 100) ranges. Greek officials issued a health warning for residents, advising against exercise and long excursions outdoors and encouraging people to wear masks and shut windows and doors.

With the gusts of desert particles came unseasonal heat—temperatures on the island of Crete, for example, exceeded 86 degrees Fahrenheit. These same winds have given rise to early wildfires in the country, with at least 25 new ignitions reported within 24 hours of Tuesday, per BBC News. A blaze on Crete led to evacuations from homes and a kindergarten.

Greece has endured a barrage of extreme heat and wildfires over the past year—in July, amid record-breaking European heat waves, high temperatures exceeded 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Athens. The country fought to contain hundreds of fires in 2023, and a dry, hot summer forecast sparks high concerns for 2024, the Parliament Magazine’s Julia Kaiser reports.

By midday on Wednesday, the skies over Athens had gradually begun to clear. The heat, however, continued moving across the region—setting high temperature records in Niger, Chad and Turkey on Wednesday and moving to the east on Thursday, writes the Washington Post’s Ian Livingston.

Christian Thorsberg | READ MORE

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.