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Dust Storm on the Arabian Peninsula

NASA Earth Observatory

May 09, 2013
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2013-05-08 00:00:00
May 8, 2013

A dust storm blew across the Arabian Peninsula in early May 2013. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on May 8. Dust plumes were especially thick over Yemen.

Plentiful material for dust storms exists in the Arabian Peninsula’s Empty Quarter or Rub’ al Khali. Considered empty because it has so few human inhabitants, the Empty Quarter contains half as much sand as the entire Sahara Desert. The Empty Quarter extends over portions of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, fueling frequent dust storms in the region.

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NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response. Caption by Michon Scott.

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