Where does the dust come from?

Huge quantities of African dust are blowing westward across the Atlantic Ocean again-a seasonal advance that creates dense atmospheric hazes over the Caribbean and the southeastern United States. The dust from parched African deserts brings with it the potential for disease.
    It is summertime in the northern hemisphere, and that means dusty skies in the western Atlantic, Each year, the region gets hundreds of tons of dust from northern Africa, where storms in the Sahara and Sahel generate clouds from fine particles in the arid topsoil. Trade winds carry them eastward to the Americas and the Caribbean.
    Research shows that the dust reaches the northern Amazon basin between February and April. From June to October, the winds shift and transport it to Central and North America and the Caribbean.