Dust continued blowing off the coast of Tunisia in early December 2010. On December 1, a thick plume of dust stretched across the Mediterranean Sea, from Tunisia past Sicily. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite took this picture the same day.
A plume of dust so thick it completely hides the land and water surfaces below stretches northeastward from Tunisia. The dust passes over northwestern Sicily and mixes with clouds west of mainland Italy. Between dust and clouds, the Mediterranean Sea is almost completely obscured in this natural-color image. The clouds may be related to the same weather system that stirred the dust.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
