• Haze continues to hover over northern India and Bangladesh

    Ongoing haze blows across the mouths of the Ganges River and over the Bay of Bengal. Temperature inversion keeps smoke from agricultural fires and urban and industrial pollutants near the ground, rather than rising higher into the atmosphere and dispersing. Haze

  • Dust plumes from Sahara over Mediterranean Sea

    A plume of Saharan dust, extending roughly 1,110 kilometers (700 miles), spanned the Mediterranean Sea in late January 2013. A swath of dust blows northward from the Sahara Desert in Libya, over the Gulf of Sidra, past the western end of the Jebel Akhdar

  • Dust over Saudi Arabia and Red Sea

    Dust can be seen in the air over Saudi Arabia and blowing westward over the Red Sea. Unsettled weather is typical in Saudi Arabia in winter, with strong winds a frequent occurrence. The Rub’ al Khali desert, the world’s largest sand sea, covers large parts of the