Dust blew off the west coast of Africa and over the Atlantic Ocean in late October 2011. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this natural-color image on October 27, 2011. Dust forms a thin veil of translucent beige, and obscures the coastline. The dust is thickest off the coast of Guinea, but a thinner arc of dust extends to Cape Verde in the northwest.
The dust likely arose from vast sand seas of the Sahara Desert. Fires burning in the Sahel may also have contributed smoke to the plume.
NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
