Strongest sand storm ever captured on satellite over the Sahara

gsfc ^ | 04/03/03 | gsfc

[Doctor Stochastic]

I wonder if those black border lines are there in real life?

Gridiron yardlines are.

[TBall]

I think you might be right. I just visited this site and the lines were not in any of the pictures. I hope your right because it would take a ton of paint to keep the lines maintained.

http://www.volvooceanadventure.org/article.php/rz_1_rom_01_rl_00100_00700.html

[litehaus]

Ah com'on..........u no Kerry said it was BUSH'S fault...

[My2Cents]

LOL...One of the many great lines for that great movie.

[WestTexasWend]

...or maybe this is part of the pre-release promo for "Hidalgo"

[bondjamesbond]

Of course we all know that IT IS ALL GEORGE BUSH'S FAULT...

[blam]

" The Canary Islands are the only inhabited area affected."

This iron rich dust will make it's way all the way to Florida in a few days where it will cover everything in orange. Also, when it lands in the Gulf Of Mexico, the iron causes an explosive growth of plankton (Red Tide) that causes low oxygen zones and kills fish.

[Ichneumon]

Is that coloration sand that is spread/blown laterally or vertically? Looks almost like a vertical cloud.

Laterally. The apparent "verticality" is just an optical illusion.

[Ichneumon]

Amending my last post: What's even more striking is how much the sandstorm, and some of the geographic features, look like artificial brushstrokes, as if portions of this photo were painted on.

[anniegetyourgun]

And worse yet, he has no plan to correct the problem.

[VOA]

This is obviously Bush's fault.

You beat me to it.
Now I've got a reason to watch the evening news on TV...to see how they
tell about the EEEVVVIIILLL Dubya and his devastation of the environment.
Surely this must be a result of research by Dick "Dr. Evil" Cheney and
his minions at Halliburton.

[!1776!]

Is that coloration sand that is spread/blown laterally or vertically? Looks almost like a vertical cloud.

Both, actually. The vertical motion of the storm lifts the sand vertically, and the winds advect the sand laterally.

A picture at:

http://www.osei.noaa.gov/IOD/OSEIiod.jpg

has some arrows to point out the sand.

[Ichneumon]

Really freaking huge high-resolution photo of the same storm, 2600x3400 pixels in size (dialup users beware).

[Prodigal Son]

Thanks for that reply.

[MineralMan]

"Amending my last post: What's even more striking is how much the sandstorm, and some of the geographic features, look like artificial brushstrokes, as if portions of this photo were painted on.

"

I think those are windrows of sand, deposited from all the sandstorms like this one that sweep the area. Very interesting photo.

[Prodigal Son]

Thanks. That's what I thought too. But when I first looked at it, my mind just read 'vertical' and I couldn't see it any other way after that. Plus I slept through those required six semesters of 'Analyzing Satellite Imagery of Saharan Sand Storms' so I was probably heading into this conundrum with a disadvantage ;-)

[Robert A Cook PE]

The problem isn't the straight lines in the sand.

(Heck, "anybody" can paint straight lines .....)

The problem is getting those neat little zig-zags on the angled lines exactly right.

[Ichneumon]

[Is that coloration sand that is spread/blown laterally or vertically? Looks almost like a vertical cloud.]

Both, actually. The vertical motion of the storm lifts the sand vertically, and the winds advect the sand laterally.

Yes, the sand is of course lifted off the ground, but the amount would not be visible in this photo. Even if it were lifted up into the air as high as the top of Mount Everest, the vertical component would only be equal to five pixels of this image (less than 1% of its width).

It's easy to overestimate the "thickness" of the Earth's atmosphere, or geographic "roughness". If the Earth were the size of a billiard ball, it would be about as smooth *as* a billiard ball, even taking into account such "imperfections" as the depth of the Marianas Trench and the height of Everest. At billiard-ball size, the difference in heights of those features would amount to imperfections no greater than a few one-thousandths of an inch.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Please don't beat the conundrum too hard.

(Her roommate has a headache and the noise is gonna drive her right out of the convent....)

[Joe Boucher]

guillermo, where do you live? I too am a Dolphin fan. Port St. Lucie.

Nice Picture,where'd you get it?