In late April 1998 an extreme Asian dust episode reached the U.S. western seaboard. This event was observed by several in situ and remote sensing atmospheric measurement stations. Dramatic reductions in boundary layer visibility were recorded and the resultant peak backscatter coefficients exceeded prevailing upper tropospheric background conditions by at least 2 orders of magnitude. An analysis of this event is given using lidar vertical backscatter profilometry, concurrent Sun photometer opacity data, and transport modeling. At San Nicolas Island the measured and modeled aerosol optical thickness at 500 nm increased dramatically from 0.15 on April 25 to 0.52 on April 26--27. Volume size distribution on April 27 exhibited a prominent coarse mode at 1--2 μm radius, and single-scattering albedo was observed to increase from 0.90 in the blue to 0.93 in the near infrared. Concurrent lidar observations tracked the evolution of the plume vertical structure, which consisted of up to three well-defined layers distributed throughout the free troposphere. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union