Dust Plumes off Western Africa

Dust Plumes off Western Africa

The dust that blew off the west coast of northern Africa in mid-September 2010 continued traveling westward across the Atlantic Ocean until it skirted the margins of Tropical Storm Julia.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on September 18, 2010, over the open ocean. Julia forms a comma-shaped swirl in the west. Thin but visible dust appears immediately east of the storm. The dust follows an arc from the southeast to the north.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.