April 9, 2022 - Dust Cloud over Syria, Iraq, Turkey

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A thick cloud of dust hung over parts of southeastern Turkey, northern
Iraq, and northeastern Syria in early April 2022. The Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra
satellite captured the scene on April 7. At that time the dense orange
dust was so thick that it obscured the land from view over an area of
about 78,000 square kilometers (30,116 square miles). That’s very close
to the size of the U.S. state of South Carolina. Although not as thick,
dust also hangs in the air around the state-sized cloud, especially in
the north, where orange dust appears to mix with the cloud layer, and
to the east where a long tendril of dense dust also obscures the land
from view.

The origins of the dust swept up by the strong winds in this storm are
not obvious, but the Arabian Peninsula is filled with sand-and-dust
laden deserts, such as the An Nafud Desert and the Empty Quarter. The
Empty Quarter, or Rub’ al Khali, sprawls over parts of Saudi Arabia,
Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Containing about half as
much sand as the Sahara Desert, the Empty Quarter provides a rich
source for the frequent dust storms of the region.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 4/7/2022
Resolutions: 1km (123.2 KB), 500m (262.7 KB), 250m (1013.1
KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-04-09

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