Investigation of dust storms in Ilam and the performance analysis of simulation of 6 numerical prediction models at a severe dust storm in west of Iran

Introduction: Many countries encounter dust storms phenomenon that is one of the meteorological problems leading to many disturbances. Materials and methods: Although the dust storm is historically recorded as an old event in some provinces of Iran, but it becomes a new event in some parts such as Ilam province. Results: After statistical investigation of dust storms in Ilam province, the dust storm from 3td to 6th July 2016 are studied. The source of this dust storm was the eastern areas of Syria and central Iraq base on the satellite images, the outputs of HYSPLIT and WRF-Chem models. Conclusion: Model outputs in intensity of surface dust concentration of MACC-ECMWF, NASA-GEOS, NCEP-NGAC, NMMB-BSC, and BSCDREAM8b models are compared to the observation data in Ilam city and results show that NASA-GEOS model has better performance. In display of dust dispersion on Iran, the middle of all models is more compatible with reality.