Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
A thick band of dust was snaking across the Red Sea between Egypt and Saudi Arabia on May 13, 2005. In this surface temperature image, the airborne plume of dust is much cooler than the ground beneath it. The dust is a cool blue streak over the hot arid landscape. Although it is difficult to tell from this single image where the dust cloud originated and which way it is moving, additional satellite data collected over several hours by the METEOSAT satellite reveal that the event began to the northeast of the area shown here, in the vicinity of Jordan. Over the course of the day, the cloud advanced southward and expanded into the arc pictured here. This image of the dust storm was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite.
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