Dust plumes blew off the west coast of Africa and over the Atlantic Ocean in early June 2009, just missing Cape Verde. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on June 4, 2009.
Although large, the plumes are not thick enough to completely obscure the satellite’s view of the ocean below. The dust is thickest in the south, where a plume extends hundreds of kilometers westward. Thinner dust skirts the islands of Cape Verde. Red dots near the African coast indicate hotspots associated with wildfires or agricultural fires, and some smoke may mingle with the dust blowing over the Atlantic.
NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.
