The dust storm that arose on January 11 spread toward the south and east the next day. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image on January 12.
By the time MODIS captured this scene, the dust storm stretched from the coast of Pakistan to Strait of Hormuz. Thick enough to hide the ground surface below, a river of dust flowed southward past the Dasht-e Lut (Desert of Emptiness) in southeastern Iran. West and south of that desert, mountain ridges poked above the low-lying dust.
Dust storms rank among the leading natural hazards in Iran. Away from the subtropical climate of the Caspian Sea coast, Iran is mostly arid or semiarid, and less than 10 percent of the country’s land is arable.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response. Caption by Michon Scott. Instrument: Terra - MODIS
