A thick cloud of dust obscures the West African coast in this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image acquired by the Terra satellite on January 11, 2004. Earlier images show dust blowing out of the Bodele Depression near Lake Chad, seen here in the upper right corner of the image. It appears that the dust from that storm has blown south over the Atlantic Ocean. Several agricultural fires, represented by red dots, are also burning in the region. It is likely that most of the haze seen here is dust, not smoke, because the fires are not producing large amounts of smoke in earlier images.
The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel.
Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
