Thick dust blew off the coasts of Sudan and Eritrea in early July 2011. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on July 12, 2011.
The thickest dust plume blows in a clockwise arc off the coast of Sudan. To the south, a large veil of dust hangs over the Red Sea, spanning the length of Eritrea’s coastline. In the south, some dust extends all the way across the Red Sea to Yemen. In the north, thick dust mostly stops short of reaching Saudi Arabia.
This dust storm blew over Eritrea at the same time that nation was coping with another natural hazard: the eruption of Nabro Volcano.
NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.
