EL CENTRO, CA – NOVEMBER 3: A cloud of dust envelops a helicopter as members of the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) practice low-visibility Ôdust landingÕ while flying over parts of Imperial County and in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park during Merlin Helicopter training out of Naval Air Facility (NAF) El Centro in Exercise MERLIN VORTEX on November 3, 2009 near El Centro, California. The RAF chose the southern California desert in part for its variety of hot and often dusty desert and rugged high mountains for training pilots and acclimatizing troops and Merlin helicopters for the extreme environments they will face upon deployed to Afghanistan later this year. The exercise to prepare 5 flights of 29 (Army Co-operation) and 78 Squadrons began in late August and will conclude in late November. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
It's been nicknamed the Gorilla Dust Cloud and it's a plume of dust from the Sahara desert in northern Africa, thousands of feet above the tropical Atlantic Ocean, and is now cloaking the Caribbean and closing in on the southeastern United States.
"This is the most significant event in the past 50 years. Conditions are dangerous in many Caribbean islands," Pablo Méndez Lázaro, from the University of Puerto Rico's School of Public Health, told the Associated Press.
You can actually see the cloud from space!
More details on the cloud and its impact CLICK HERE
Check out some before and after pics
