Dust Plumes off Western Africa

Dust Plumes off Western Africa

Saharan dust lingered over Cape Verde on June 24, 2009, two days after massive plumes blew off the coasts of Mauritania and Senegal. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on June 24. A translucent plume of camel-colored haze hovers over the ocean surface west of Cape Verde’s Fogo Island. The dust appears thickest in the southwest. In the north, the air holds less dust, but a faint haze hangs over the entire region. A bank of clouds obscures any dust plumes in the northeast.

NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.