Severe Dust Storms in Central Asia¹

N. S. Orlovsky, L. Orlovsky, and R. Indoitu

Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Israel,
84990, Sede Boqer Campus

e-mail: nicolai@bgu.ac.il

Received March 3, 2013

Abstract—The study of the spatial distribution of the severe and very severe dust storms over the Central Asian
area has been carried out. The dust storm event can be considered as severe if it lasts 3–12 h, storms with wind
speed 10–14 m/s and meteorological visibility in the range of 500–1000 m. The extremely severe dust storms
last more than 12 h, with the wind speed exceeding 15 m/s; the dust storms with meteorological visibility less
than 50 m are considered as very severe regardless to duration and wind speed. The data of daily meteorological
observations from 144 meteorological stations of Kazakhstan and 29 meteorological stations in Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan for the period 1936–1972 had been analyzed, and number of days with severe and very severe
dust storms had been calculated using above criteria. Relation between the number of days with dust events and
number of severe and very severe storms was calculated, and map of spatial distribution of severe events in Cen-
tral Asia was compiled using this relation. The analysis of extremely severe dust storms, which developed under
the exits of southern cyclones, was done.

Keywords: climate change, dust storms frequency, desertification

DOI: 10.1134/S2079096113040082

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