Dust plumes blew off the west coast of Africa in late May 2010, traveling west of Cape Verde toward South America. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on May 28, 2010.
South of Dakar, Senegal, dust is thick enough to completely hide the sea surface below, and the thick dust plumes appear rippled in places. To the north, a thinner dust plume blows toward the southwest, skirting Cape Verde. A haze of dust, however, hangs over the entire region. Some of the islands in Cape Verde create wakes in the clouds that are also moving toward the southwest.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Michon Scott.
