The song "Dust in the Wind" by the rock group Kansas has always been one of my favorites. And it's the first thing that came to mind when I saw some of the latest images from a European weather satellite.

Here, northwestern Africa is on the right, the Atlantic Ocean on the left. The yellow arrows point to airborne dust and sand that's been blown off the coast of Morocco and out over the ocean. Such dusty intrusions are fairly common, especially in summer and early fall, as plumes of dust-laden air rise from the hot floor of the Sahara desert.

It's more than 4000 miles from the coast of Morocco to the coast of Florida. Nonetheless, the same prevailing high-altitude easterly winds that will, in a few months, bring tropical systems across the ocean to threaten the United States, also sometimes carry this dust to the Caribbean and even south Florida.