Dust Storms, Valley Fever, and Public Awareness

Abstract

Terms of UseCC BY-NC 4.0 What Is a Dust Storm?We note there is inconsistency in the definition and use of the term "dust storm" within different scientific communities (Comrie, 2021;Lei et al., 2016) and in the public vernacular. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines a dust storm as a blowing dust event that reduces visibility to 1 km or less (WMO, 2019). Operational weather warning in the USA National Weather Service (NWS) adopts more stringent criteria for defining a dust storm, including visibility of ¼ mile or less (NWS, 2022). The dust events in which the visibility is not so significantly reduced and/or wind is not so strong are classified and listed in weather observations as