Yellow Dust

A short while ago I posted some pics about Hwang-sa, and what a mess it leaves on everything over here. Actually, it's messiest when it's combined with rain, which happens often. It's dirty rain! Other times, though, it blows in on clear days like it did on Tuesday when the day started out blue and breezy and sunny, and just seemed to get progressively more smoggy throughout the day. Otherwise known as yellow dust, this stuff blows in from the Gobi Desert, in northern China and southern Mongolia.

Apparently, global warming is causing an increase in the amount of yellow dust being dumped in other places, as noted in this article from the Daily Yomiuri Online. It also notes that the dust was blown all the way over to North America in 2001, which I didn't think was possible! Actually, one of my students asked me if we had Hwang-sa in Canada and I chuckled at him, "Canada is a loooong way away! No, we don't have yellow dust! Turns out I don't know what the hell I'm talking about! (Which is neither news, nor surprising!)

And just so you know, the reason it's called yellow dust? It's YELLOW! My apartment building was covered in the stuff earlier this week.

Here's an orderly line of the stuff on one of the stairs.
Let's have a closer look:

Now THAT'S some yellow!
It's also super fine, like slightly grainy baby powder. Like, well, DUST!