Over the last few days, large quantities of Saharan sand dust have been advected from North Africa to Western Europe and France with particularly high concentrations, especially over Western and Southern Europe.
These large quantities of sand caused great difficulties in the weather forecasts in the middle of the week, particularly between Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 March, with significant differences between the forecast and the actual situation over a large part of France.
Under generally anticyclonic conditions and a southerly flow, Wednesday 16 March was to be a fairly pleasant day over a large part of France, with only more clouds under a front circulating near the Channel and more or less cloudy skies elsewhere, or even rather sunny skies over the Centre-East
the north of the country.
