Dust

Today we had our first really dusty day since my arrival last November. Although the weather forecast had warned about the possibility of "blowing dust" it didn't hit me until I left my trailer early this morning. Winter days here usually have been characterized by clear or somewhat cloudy skies and cold temperatures. This has been one of the coldest winters in Baghdad in recent memory; it even snowed lightly one morning last month.

Not so this morning; when I left the trailer the sky was uniformly light brown and it just got progressively worse. By late afternoon the sky was positively dark. I took the picture accompanying this entry just before 5:30 PM today. When I left the office around 10:00 PM everything looked foggy in the lamp lights around the embassy compound -- only the fog was just more dust. During the short walk back to my trailer, my eyes were irritated.

Yet this wasn't the typically desert Haboob or Sirocco, both of which feature high winds. This dust just slowly settled in over Baghdad and grew in density. In fact, I don't recall much of a breeze at all.