The electric field in sandstorm can strongly affect the sand׳s scattering properties

•The extinction efficiency of charged particle in electric field is discussed.•The electric field has an important influence on particle optical properties.•The electric field in sandstorm strongly enhanced the sand's scattering properties.•Increasing charge density will change the laws for the effect of electric field.•Increasing the charged angle will change the laws for the effect of electric field.

It has been found that the particle in the sandstorm is always associated with the separation of electric charge, which in turn produces a strong electrostatic field. A few papers have reported that the surplus charge on particle has a significant effect on particles׳ optical properties, but no any reports on the influence of the environmental electric field. In order to fill this gap, this paper proposed a theoretical model and carried out a numerical simulation. The calculated results show that the environmental electric field, when it is more than 50 kV/m, should have a significant influence on particle׳s optical properties, and the stronger the environmental electric field is, the more obvious the influence is. This paper also shows that both the charged angle and the charge density on particle have some influences on it. The above findings offer a theoretical guidance to understand the effect of electric field on the microwave propagation on the sandstorm.