Dust blew over Sudan in mid-May 2013. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on May 14. The dust plume extended hundreds of kilometers, thick enough in places to completely hide the land surface below.
Source points for the dust plume are not obvious in this image, but the dust may have arisen from fine lake and riverbed sediments. A network of wadis and ephemeral lakes fills western Sudan. Dust storms count among the most frequent natural hazards in this dry country.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
