As winds transport dust from the Sahara, Athens takes on an orange hue

Dust storms swept over the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa smothered the Acropolis and other Athens sites on Tuesday, giving the skies above southern Greece an orange tint.

At the end of the day, the air in the Greek capital had a Martian quality due to the dust that strong southerly winds brought in from the Sahara Desert.

On Wednesday, temperatures will drop and winds will change, clearing the sky. On Tuesday, temperatures in southern Crete reached 30 degrees Celsius, which was almost 20 degrees higher than the northern region of Greece.

Surprising orange sky blanketed the city, people flocked to social media to share their shock.

 

South of the nation, unusually early flames have been whipped by the strong southerly winds in recent days.

On Tuesday night, the fire department said that 25 wildfires had broken out nationwide on the previous day. The Aegean Sea tourist island of Paros saw three individuals detained on Monday, allegedly for setting a scrub fire by mistake, according to the report.

The fire was extinguished without causing any major harm or casualties.

Every summer, Greece is hit by destructive forest fires, and last year, the nation saw the worst wildfire in over 20 years according to the European Union.

Firefighters are bracing for an especially difficult time in the next months due to persistent dryness and high spring temperatures.