Dust Storm over the Red Sea

Dust Storm over the Red Sea

Dust continued blowing off the Sudanese coast and over the Red Sea on July 4, 2008. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture of the storm at 11:00 UTC (2:00 p.m. local time), a little more than three hours after MODIS on the Terra satellite observed the storm.

In this image, the plume has progressed eastward toward the west coast of Saudi Arabia. Dust is also thicker in the southern portion of the Red Sea, and dust begins to obscure the satellite’s view of Jaza ir Farasan. As the plume has moved eastward, clouds have moved in, dotting the skies over Saudi Arabia.

NASA image courtesy of Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.