A dust storm struck southeastern Australia in mid-April 2009. In Australia’s capital city, Canberra, high winds and limited visibility made travel dangerous, and people with respiratory difficulties were warned to exercise caution, the Australian Broadcast Corporation reported.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on April 15, 2009. In this true-color image, beige dust plumes form ripple patterns over the landscape. In the northeast, the dust is thick enough to completely block out the land surface below. Toward the west, the dust is somewhat thinner. The dust plumes blow over the state of New South Wales, west of Canberra.
NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.
