Dust Storm along the Iranian Coast

A dust storm blew along the Iranian coast over the Gulf of Oman on June 17, 2009. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this photo-like image the same day. The dust appears as a gray-beige plume along the coast, and the dust appears thickest along the plume’s western edge.

Source points for the storm are not obvious in this image, so the storm’s origins are unclear. Semi-desert covers much of Iran, and the country has some sizeable deserts, such as Dasht-e Lut, part of which appears along the top edge of this image. If not in Iran, the dust may have originated on the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or points farther west.

1. References

2. Earth Observatory. (2006, March 27). Winter in the Dasht-e-Lut Desert, Eastern Iran. Accessed June 17, 2009.
3. Earth Observatory. (2006, October 11). Diverse Terrain of Iran’s Dasht-e Lut. Accessed June 17, 2009.
4. Wikipedia. (2009, June 8). Geography of Iran. Accessed June 17, 2009.

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NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.

Published June 17, 2009
Data acquired June 17, 2009

Source:

Aqua > MODIS