A late winter storm brought strong winds and rain to the Arabian Peninsula in late February 2009. The storm blew dense plumes of dust east across Saudi Arabia on February 26. The dust appears to have originated at the base of Hurrat Rahat, Saudi Arabia’s largest lava field. The dust is coming from paler patches of exposed soil along the dark-colored front of the lava field. These areas are probably small depressions that hold water from time to time. The soil that remains after water evaporates is loose and light, and as a result, dry lakebeds are very common sources of airborne dust.
The dust extends east from Hurrat Rahat across the Arabian Peninsula. Another source may be contributing to the wide wall of dust advancing across the peninsula in the upper right corner of the image.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on February 26, 2010. The highest resolution version of the image is provided above, but the image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response System.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
