Abstract. In this paper, one meteorological case study for two Iranian airports are presented.

Dust storms represent one of the most severe, if underrated, natural hazards in drylands. This study uses ground observational data from meteorological stations and airports (SYNOP and METARs), satellite observations (MODIS level-3 gridded atmosphere daily products and CALIPSO) and reanalysis data (ERA5) to analyze the synoptic meteorology of a severe Middle Eastern dust storm in April 2015. Details of related socio-economic impacts, gathered largely from news media reports, are also documented. This dust storm affected at least 14 countries in an area of 10 million km2. The considerable impacts were felt across eight countries in health, transport, education, construction, leisure and energy production. Hospitals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE experienced a surge in cases of respiratory complaints and ophthalmic emergencies, as well as vehicular trauma due to an increase in motor vehicle accidents. Airports in seven countries had to delay, divert and cancel flights during the dust storm. This paper is the first attempt to catalogue such dust storm impacts on multiple socio-economic sectors in multiple countries in any part of the world. This type of transboundary study of individual dust storm events is necessary to improve our understanding of their multiple impacts and so inform policymakers working on this emerging disaster risk management issue.

Low visibility conditions due to fog affect air traffic and, in some cases, are the leading cause of aviation accidents. Accurate forecasting of fog can lead to a significant reduction of human and financial losses. Numerical weather prediction (NWP) models have limitations in simulating fog accurately for operational purposes. However, recent studies have confirmed that ensemble‐based forecasts are effective in fog forecasting. In this study, a multi‐physics ensemble prediction system (EPS) was used to simulate the occurrence of several radiation, cloud base lowering (CBL), and advection fog events that occurred at Arak, Ardebil, Hamedan, Orumiyeh, Rasht and Shahrekord airports located across Iran, during January and December 2015. The multi‐physics EPS including a reference deterministic forecast consists of 16 different configurations of the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model and was run from 12 UTC 12 January to 12 UTC 16 January 2015 and from 00 UTC 27 December to 12 UTC 31 December 2015 to simulate fog occurrences at six airports. SW99 and G2009 visibility algorithms were applied to the EPS outputs to predict the fog. The advantages of probabilistic fog forecasting in this study were shown by comparing the reference forecast and the ensemble‐based forecasts of fog events. The results showed that by considering a probability threshold of 37.5%, 50% and 62.5% for the ensemble forecasts, the EPS outperformed the deterministic fog forecasts obtained from a deterministic reference forecast. Such that, with 37.5% and 50% probability thresholds, the equitable threat score (ETS) was much higher than the ETS for the reference deterministic fog forecast. Also, the EPS with 37.5% and 50% probability thresholds could correctly predict 3 and 4 (out of 10) more fog events compared with the reference deterministic forecast.

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