Why is the sky turning orange and is it really 'raining sand'?

ITV News Reporter Yasmin Bodalbhai explores how and why the Saharan dust blowing across Europe reached the UK earlier on Wednesday

In the past 24 hours cars and windows in the southeast and other parts of the UK have been covered in a dust that's flown all the way from the Sahara Desert.

It's something that happens from time to time and is a result of strong winds in the Sahara whipping up dust and sand particles high into the sky and if the air in the upper part of the atmosphere is blowing northwards, it can travel as far north as the UK.  

Dust particles are incredibly light so will happily stay up in the atmosphere blowing around, however if it starts to rain, like it has today, the particles can get pulled down out of the sky and settle on cars and windows as we've seen.

The dust is mostly harmless, but it can irritate some people's eyes, ears, noses, and throats.

It can enhance our sunsets as the light catches the orange dust making our skies more colourful and in some cases eerie.

This time round it was a deep depression across Iberia named Storm Celia that dragged the plume of Saharan dust northwards into the Mediterranean where it's been much more visible across Spain and France.