Mysterious dust drops all over Houston and car washes love it

By Heather Alexander, Houston Chronicle | December 23, 2013 | Updated: December 23, 2013 3:26pm

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Photo By James Nielsen/Houston Chronicle

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Catherine Jones prepares to have the red dust washed from SUV at the Car Spa Monday, Dec. 23, 2013, in Houston.

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Christmas came early for the city's car washes yesterday as hundreds of people lined up to get a thick layer of red dust removed from their vehicles.
"They were just covered," said staff at Mister Carwash on Braeswood Place in West U. "People could barely see out of the windshield."
Owner John Starks says they saw twice as many cars as usual, "we had around 500 cars in here yesterday, it was a good day for us."
The National Weather Service says the dust came from Mexico and was picked up by a weather system over the weekend. Then once the rain started, it came down.
"We often get cold fronts that pick up dust in West Texas also, that can be carried as far as Louisiana," says Kent Prochazka from our local weather service office in League City.
He said dust can be carried a lot further than that, too.
"We've had cases of dust from the Sahara Desert being dropped in Florida." Dust from the Gobi desert in Mongolia has even made it all the way across the Pacific Ocean to the Western states of the U.S.