Dust

International audience This chapter provides guidelines to forecasters to predict dust storms and episodes of dust haze, typically caused by southward advection of large amounts of dust from the Sahara into the southern parts of West Africa. An important source of information for forecasting dust storms or haze is the three-hourly surface synoptic observation (SYNOP), hourly meteorological aviation routine weather report (METAR) and SPECI airport reports network in West Africa. The Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) infrared (IR) dust product is the most widely used for operational dust forecasting owing to its near-real-time availability, high time resolution and applicability during day and night. The chapter explains how best to use the data from station observations, remote sensing and numerical models in an operational forecast environment for the two main seasons (November-April Harmattan dust haze (HDH) and April-August convective dust storms in the Sahel).