Fungal storms are not so much a storm of fungi, but fungi that spread through storms, and these events are becoming much more prevalent as climate change amps up the intensity and the frequency of storms. In particular, they are affecting the dry, dusty and hot south-west of America.
In south-western USA, storms often manifest as dust storms, where clouds of sand, soil and dust are whipped up by extreme temperatures, including the fast-moving walls of dust known as "haboobs". Construction, agriculture and wildfires also add to the particles carried in these intense storms.
As well as dirty windows and hazy skies, these storms can disrupt air and ground transportation, agriculture, and solar power generation. They can also trigger heavy rain, flooding and mud flows. But it's now becoming clear that these storms also carry fungal spores from disturbed or contaminated soil hundreds of kilometers from where they were once safely buried.
Once airborne, these microscopic spores are easily ingested by humans and animals alike. Fungal infections are spiking in desert states like Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas, but also even further afield, like Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Kansas.
Infections from fungus species like coccidoides, aspergillus, candida auris, histoplasma capsulatum and blastomyces dermititidis are being found far from their traditional stomping grounds, making diagnosis tricky. They are expected to spread still further into the Midwest, even Canada, in the comimg decades. Coccidoides causes "valley fever" and severe pulmonary disease in some cases. Aspergillis, particularly drug-resistant strains, can lead to life-threatening infections in people with weakened immune systems.
These dangerous species, of course, only represent a small fraction of fungi, the vast majority of which are harmless, even beneficial. But it's an important minority, and becoming ever more important.
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