Midwest states hit with ‘danger to life’ dust storm warning - how to check your air quality

Deadly dust clouds have triggered a 'danger to life' warning for hundreds of thousands of people across three states in the Midwest, with residents urged to remain indoors until it is safe to go outside.

This warning follows a number of dust storms have struck towns and cities across the northern US over the past week, which have wreaked havoc with transport and kicked up dangerous clouds of fine particulate matter.

Millions of people have already been affected by health warnings in connection with these potentially life-threatening clouds and storms this week, but on Thursday an urgent wind and 'blowing dust advisory' was issued to residents across three states as the threat continued.

Communities in Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota remain under this danger to life advisory, which the National Weather Service says will stay in place until between 9pm and midnight tonight (Friday, May 15).

300,000 residents in these states are being affected by this warning as the dust cloud of fine particulate matter kicked up by this week's storms continues to cause a sharp decline in air quality.

The World Air Quality Index project, which tracks air quality across hundreds of countries, reported one community in Watertown, South Dakota, had seen its pollution index climb to the top end of its 'hazardous' zone.

At this level, advice from the EPA states that all outdoor physical activity should be avoided. This is because these dust clouds contain superfine particles, called PM10s, which are fine enough to build up in your lungs or even enter your bloodstream.

In these areas affected by dangerous dust clouds, with an 'unhealthy' pocked of air also blanketing Fargo, North Dakota, anyone with respiratory issues like asthma will likely be most at risk from outdoor activity.

And this is just the tail end of a low pressure weather system that has caused road closures and accidents across Midwestern states this week, as dust storms start to pose an increasingly common risk across the region.

On Tuesday, drivers across Illinois were advised to pull over if one of the giant dust clouds surrounded their car, with the state issuing a 'dangerous life-threatening travel' warning to motorists for the once novel weather event.

Climate scientists and meteorologists believe that the increasing prevalence and size of these dangerous dust clouds across the Midwest, a stark reminder of the agricultural disaster that turned much of the American prairie into the 'Dust Bowl' of the 1930s.

However, due to changes in how farmers now work the soil during the Spring planting season, the top layer of soil on vast stretches of farmland is left exposed to the inclement weather conditions of late April and May.

“We believe that farming practices are evolving,” NWS meteorologist Mike Albano, who works at the Central Illinois office, told Newsweek. “The way in which farmers plant with high-speed precision planters, essentially, it’s grounding the topsoil to a finer powder than it used to be over the previous decades.

"Those high-speed precision planters, we think, are contributing to [the] blowing dust and reduced visibility across the state.”

You can view where the current dust clouds are hovering over the Midwest on the AirNow website.