A dust storm over Jordan, Syria, and Iraq intensified on the afternoon of March 3, 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image at 12:25 p.m. Damascus time (10:25 UTC). Compared to the image acquired earlier that day, this image shows thicker, larger plumes, and less distinct source points.
As with the earlier image, much of the dust appears to originate along the eastern edge of Harrat ar Rujaylah, a lava field, and to blow from there toward the east-northeast. A long, pale plume over Syria, however, appears to hover in the sky west of where most of the dust has arisen. Different winds at different altitudes may have blown some of the dust in the opposite direction than it was originally moving.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
