The Great Coventry Dust Storm!

[dutchman]

Have you spotted a strange layer of dust covering your car in Coventry and Warwickshire?

Has it fallen from space or is the cause a little closer to home?

BBC Coventry & Warwickshire's Breakfast Show received lots of calls and messages on Tuesday, 9 March about the dust, which appeared over the weekend.

Sightings of the substance have included cars in Wyken and Stoke in Coventry, but also as far out as Rugby and Warwick.

Since the discussion on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire, Coventry City Council have issued a press release stating that they found the cause to be the former Peugeot factory site, which is being developed into houses.

The recent dry weather and wind blowing in the right direction, caused the surface soil to be blown across the area around Humber Road in Stoke.

Building dust

There had been various suggestions as to what the cause could be. Was it an emission of ash from the Whitley incinerator? Could it have been connected to the demolition of the Courtaulds chimney and water tower or simply work on the old Peugeot factory site (which it would turn out to be)?

All these were definite possibilities, but for the ash type powder to cover such a wide area, it got people talking.

Some Sahara?

Ronnie from Coundon in Coventry called the Breakfast Show to say: "Many years ago we had a great big fall of dust from the Sahara Desert. I came out to get to my car and I looked at the dust on there and it seems like the same dust.

What happens is, if there's a sandstorm, the dust rises into the jet stream and is carried for many miles. The wind would then make it fall as the temperature drops in the early hours of the morning."

Harry in Stratford also remembers sand from the Sahara coming to Warwickshire and leaving a pale copper red dust.

Jill in Warwick has also found her car looking dusty. She said: "It looks as though someone's tipped a bucket of ash over the top. It's dreadful - I've never seen anything like it. Even when we had that sandstorm years ago, it wasn't that bad. It's a different colour."

[Elaine]

my OH and our daughter have both got dusty cars. It arrived with the frost the other night - the frost melted and left the dust behind. Our daughter was fuming as she has only had the car since last Tuesday, straight out of the showroom and it was new car shiny.

[dutchman]

There have been many building projects similar to the one on the former Peugot site. How come something like this has never happened before?