Dust Storm from the Bodele Depression

Dust Storm from the Bodele Depression

To the northeast of Lake Chad, the former Saharan lake bed known as the Bodele Depression is possibly the world’s biggest single source of windblown dust, and it produced another dust storm on December 11, 2006. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Terra satellite took this picture the same day. In this image, the dust appears as off-white wisps blowing toward the southwest. West of Lake Chad is another plume of aerosols—tiny particles suspended in the air. These aerosols likely result from an earlier dust storm out of the Bodele Depression, but it’s also possible they result in part from smoke from fires to the south.

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.