CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- As if December weather couldn’t get any wilder - powerful winds that caused dust storms and wildfires in the plains have sent dust and smoke all the way from Kansas, across Missouri and into northern Illinois.
"It's a pretty rare occurrence, but will happen from time to time. This is what we are seeing, basically a big cloud of dust that has been thrown into our area," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Joe Lundberg.
AccuWeather Meteorologist Joe Lundberg said it’s analogous to the great dust bowl storms of the 1930s.
"That just became airborne and its analogous to some of the great dust bowl storms of the 1930s, where you have these long periods of dry weather, everything was dry, and then you get a big storm like this that generate these tremendous winds that would pick that dust up, carry it into the air, and then just blow it downstream," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Joe Lundberg.
Dust and smoke in the atmosphere are being combined with smoke from wind-whipped fires in grasslands in Kansas, sparked by downed power lines.
"Sixty, 70, 80, to 100 mph winds from eastern Colorado to Mexico, up across portions of Kansas and Nebraska - that kicked up a tremendous amount of dust; and somewhere along the way there was a fire that got involved in this as well. All of this has been carried airborne right into the Chicagoland," Lundberg said.
You may smell smoke in the Chicago area and notice a haze in the air, Lundberg said. And, he said, you might even see a thin film of dust on your car.
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