Climatic Characteristics of Dust Storms in Jordan

Abstract

This study is devoted to examine the climate characteristics of the Dust Storms (DS) with visibility 0 - 1 km that occurred in Jordan for the period 1988 to 2018. It is found that the DS varies temporally and spatially, as the largest number of DS occurred in 2003 (36 DS) and the lowest occurred in 1999 (one DS). The average was 17.22 DS with the coefficient of variation of 45%, the DS durations ranged from 1 - 4 days, most of them occurred in spring (54.1%) especially in April (22.2%). The DS increased southward and eastward directions, they increased from 13 DS in Irbid in the north to 182 DS in Al-Jafr in the south and to 102 DS in Safawi in the east. The results showed positive relationships between wind speeds. There were negative relationships with relative humidity, pressure and rainfall, and there was no relationship between DS and the maximum temperature.