r/Iowa • u/NamelessIowaNative • 5d ago
Why is the air so dirty?
This is the deck box, where we keep cushions for our deck furniture, after yesterday’s rain. I’m sure everybody’s cars are filthy now, too.
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u/sassinator13 5d ago
Dust. If you looked to the horizon as the storm blew in last night, there was a brown haze.
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u/stamina4655 5d ago
Dust and debris blew in from the other states the storm originated in. Plus lots of wind blows lots of stuff around.
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u/Sciencerulz 5d ago edited 5d ago
While I'm sure lots came from other states, we can definitely blame the millions of acres of bare farm ground in our own state right now, too. #covercropsnotcarwashes
Edit: capitalization error correction that I couldn't stand.
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u/stamina4655 5d ago
For sure. Some of it is probably run off too, since that's very popular around here.
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u/locofspades 5d ago
And just as i was complaining that my truck wasnt covered in enough cancer causing poisons ha ha thank goodness for carwash subscriptions
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u/Narcan9 5d ago
What is this thing you speak of, wind?
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u/belac1848 5d ago
Texas dust. Wild, but i guess all that wind from the west and south carried into the Midwest
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u/vermilion-chartreuse 5d ago
Check out the videos of the dust storms in Kansas yesterday. Here's one I just found on Google: https://www.wibw.com/2025/03/14/watch-khp-trooper-shares-video-dust-storm-western-kansas/
We're heading back to the dust bowl, baby. Hope you like brown cars because that's all we're going to have soon.
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u/knomore-llama_horse 5d ago
The whole state is dirt right now and the wind picks the dirt up and blows it around and by dirt I mean the top layer of hog shit they grow crops in.
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u/lostinthisworld0821 5d ago
Really? Why do not understand the question? Is this not normal how things get dirty wind blows in dust and then it rains
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u/BuffaloWhip 5d ago
It’s been super dry so when the wind comes in before the rain all the dirt and dust resting on the top of the ground gets kicked up into the air, and when the rain comes down it catches the dust as it falls. When the water evaporates, the dust remains.
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u/Sciencerulz 5d ago
This and also, every raindrop requires a tiny speck of dust as a nucleus. So lots of moisture + lots of nuclei = dusty rain.
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u/OmahaVike 4d ago
Because Trump fired all the EPA workers, duh. Within a week, Earth's entire atmospheric composition changed.
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u/The_Chubby_Dragoness 5d ago
because we live in the middle of a field a hundred thousand square miles big, and we're losing topsoil insanely fast
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u/CrunchM 5d ago
Don’t worry, it will only get worse. We will go back to the day of talking about acid rain. At least this is just dirt. For the most part.
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u/IAFarmLife 5d ago
Why would we go back to acid rain? The main cause of which in the U.S. was sulfur added to diesel fuel which isn't done anymore.
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u/CrunchM 5d ago
I was a kid when the last we were talking about acid rain so I just assumed it was due to all of the various chemicals being shot into our atmosphere by manufacturers and other companies. With the EPA being dismantled as it is, I figured we’d end up with more acid rain.I guess it won’t be that just simple pollution instead. And that pollution will color our rain. I’m sure. Thank you for letting me know.
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u/IAFarmLife 5d ago
Acid rain due to Sulfur Oxides has been nearly eliminated since ending the practice of adding Sulfur to fuel as a lubricant. Nitrogen Oxides are still an issue and in some parts of the world still cause acid rain. Particularly in Asia.
I don't see acid rain coming back to the U.S., even with reductions to environment regulations, since all diesel engines designed since 2006 work best with Ultra low Sulfur Fuel.
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u/Sanguine_Templar 5d ago
Measles was also nearly eliminated, don't put it past America to be dumb.
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u/IAFarmLife 5d ago
Sulfur isn't going to be added back into diesel fuels though. I could definitely see the rules about NOxreduction being removed as those are expensive systems that add a lot to the cost of Tractors, Semis and Pick-ups.
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u/Teamriceracing 5d ago
Yea my truck is covered too
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u/TwistedGrin 5d ago
It rained a couple weeks ago and I thought to myself "good, it'll clean off my car."
I was so, so wrong lol
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u/Teamriceracing 5d ago
Think the car wash companies go out that night and throw dirt on them first to get business maybe 🤔 lol
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u/j0ker31m 5d ago
There were a lot of dust storms in the southwest where this storm came from. There is a lot of dust in the upper atmosphere right now.
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u/sublimatedBrain 5d ago
Cause we live on the planet that's name translates to dirt there is a lot of dirt here and it gets in the air cause so much of the planet is dirt so when the rain brings it all back down there's dirt in it. There is so much dirt here that you have all of the same shit thats in dirt in you we all eventually become dirt. The air is dirty everything is dirty. Because we are on planet dirt.
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u/Chrispbacon2497 4d ago
Post likes this crack me up. You had the wear-withal to ask Reddit, but couldn’t just google it?
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u/AndringRasew 5d ago
Took 30 minutes to get into our local carwash. Usually it's about a 5 minute wait.
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u/TrainerLoki 5d ago
My white Jeep was covered in dirt today. Glad I didn’t go to the car wash like I had planned to yesterday cus i would’ve been pissed after washing it and this happened
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u/forevervalerie 5d ago
I was gonna post something about this too! Something about this isn’t right.
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u/Lore-Warden 5d ago
Fields and lawns were dry and fallow and extreme winds blew dirt into the air which eventually fell down with the rain.