Powerful sandstorms have scoured Northern China in recent days. In some places, visibility has dropped to 100 meters (330 feet) in the most intense sandstorm so far this year. About 70 million people in 11 provinces have been affected by strong winds and blowing sand. On March 28, 2004, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite captured this view of the dust moving over the Yellow Sea. The thickness of the dust has nearly obscured the sea. On the left side of the image, the dust and cloud are covering the nation’s capital, Beijing.
The high resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel.
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.
