February 24, 2021 - Dust over Europe

    Follow @NASA_MODIS

   Dust over Europe
    Tweet
    Share

   A sand-colored river of Saharan dust stretched from northern Africa to
   Scandinavia—a distance of more than 1,800 miles (2,900 km) in late
   February 2021. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
   (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of
   the dust on February 23. At that time, the dust was so thick over a
   long stretch (from Germany to Latvia) that it obscured the land from
   view.

   The dust was riding a strong southerly jet—a river of northward-blowing
   air. The jet was formed as a European ridge, initiated by a deep low
   near Ireland, formed in the west and, at the same time, a high-pressure
   system formed further east. As the European ridge and the North
   Atlantic deep trough pushed towards each other, the air between the two
   was pushed northward, creating a vacuum-like effect, sucking up dust
   from North Africa’s Sahara Desert and carrying it far to the north.
   Satellite imagery shows a massive funnel of dust rising from Algeria,
   Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya and crossing the Alboran Sea to reach Spain
   on February 21. By the next day, the dust-laden jet had reached Belgium
   and western Norway. The European ridge pushed eastward on February 23
   and so did the dust, which now flowed from Africa and over the Baltics
   to reach Norway.

   Each year more than 180 million tons of dust blow out from North
   Africa, lofted out of the Sahara Desert by strong seasonal winds.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 2/23/2021
   Resolutions:  1km (2.9 MB),  500m (7.3 MB),
   Bands Used:
   Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-02-24
 
