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Windblown dust impacts human health, air quality, and climate. The National Weather Service Storm Events Database (SED) is a widely used dataset of significant or unusual weather, including dust storms (DS), and resulting deaths, injuries, and material losses in the USA. The SED is frequently used by medical, social, and atmospheric scientists. However, it is uncertain whether this dataset reliably represents spatial and temporal variations and trends of DS. Analyzing the SED from 2000 to 2020 identified 1,167 DS reports; removing reports of the same event from multiple locations left 647 DS in 21 USA states. The number of DS ranged from 12 in 2008 to 53 in 2018, with no strong interannual trends detected (R² was 0.3). By examining the DS events reported in the SED based on meteorological observations including wind speed, visibility, and weather codes, we determined that the SED was not only missing …