THIS paper deals with the general phenomena involved in desert duststorms as illustrated by their incidence at Burg el 'Arab in the Western Desert of Egypt during the six-year period October 1939-September 1945. Throughout this period the desert surface was subject to a sequence of mechanical disturbances incidental to military operations which culminated in the Battle of El 'Alamein (October-November 1942); thereafter a period of relative quiescence ensued. It happened that I was able to remain in the village throughout the entire period, and as the record is probably unique and unlikely to recur, it seems worth while to make accessible some account of the occasions and general circumstances of dust-storm incidence as they came under my notice.1 Though no meteorologist, I have some familiarity with one important factor in dust control, the vegetation covering, a circumstance which may in some degree offset inevitable deficiencies in meteorological technique. This paper, then, is substantially a record of observations on dust-storms, with some commentary, confined practically to the visible horizon of Burg. Burg is about 30 miles west of Alexandria, and roughly half-way to El 'Alamein; it is 3*2 miles inland from the Mediterranean shore-line, thus being on the coastal zone of Egypt which derives a moderate, if irregular, winter rainfall from its proximity to the sea. This favoured zone, for want of a better term, is called semi-desert: it extends inland some 10-15 miles. The elements of our subject-matter are briefly the loose dust which encumbers the desert surface (dust-reservoir), and its relation to winds and other factors affecting its mobility.
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F. W. Oliver (1945) studied this question.