A massive cloud of dust hovered over Iraq in mid-September 2008. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on September 16, 2008.
In this natural-color image, a nearly uniform cloud of dust obscures the view of northeastern Iraq and a small portion of Iran. The source points for the dust storm are not obvious from this image, although the fine sediments of the Tigris and Euphrates floodplain provide plentiful material for dust storms in this region. Winds moving the dust may have changed direction slightly since kicking the dust particles aloft.
You can download a 250-meter-resolution KMZ file of the storm suitable for use with Google Earth.
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team. Caption by Michon Scott.
