Dust plumes blew over the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia in mid-March 2008. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite took this picture on March 14, 2008.
In this image, a thick plume of dust blows over Iran, the Persian Gulf, the island nation of Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. The dust narrowly misses the Qatar Peninsula. Although source points for the plumes are not apparent in this image, the dust appears to blow from the north and move in a clockwise direction to the southwest. West of the most conspicuous dust plume, smaller plumes blow over Saudi Arabia. Clear skies immediately east of these smaller plumes suggest that the plumes originate within Saudi Arabia. Clouds appear over Iran in the upper right corner of this image, and they could be associated with the same weather system that stirred the dust.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response team. Caption by Michon Scott.
