Saharan dust blew past the Canary Islands and over the Atlantic Ocean in early July 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on July 8, 2010.
A thin but discernible plume of dust extends from Morocco toward the southwest, past Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Senegal. The dust plume appears to pass over and/or mix with a layer of clouds off the coast, lending some clouds a yellowish hue. Meanwhile, vortices form downwind of the Canary Islands, especially Tenerife. The vortices give clouds southwest of the archipelago a paisley pattern.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
