Dust storm over Western Africa and the Canary Islands

Dust storm over Western Africa and the Canary Islands (03 March 2004)

Early March 2004, a coldair outbreak from Europe to Western Africa caused a major dust storm overlarge parts of West Africa. On its travel southward, the cold air fannedout across the Sahara, highly diverging over subtropic regions giving thedust front the form of a spanish fan. In the following days, the dust wasblown out across the Atlantic Ocean and reached the coast of South America.



Met-8, 03 March 2004, 12:00 UTC RGB Composite IR12.0-IR10.8, IR10.8-IR8.7, IR10.8 Full Resolution (293 KB) Animation (2-3 Mar. 2004, AVI, 21097 KB) Met-6 IR Loop (for comparison, AVI, 3095 KB)	Met-8, 03 March 2004, 12:00 UTC RGB Composite VIS0.8, IR3.9r, IR10.8-IR8.7 Full Resolution (205 KB)

Met-8, 03 March 2004, 17:00 UTC Channel 12 (HRV) Full Resolution (109 KB) Animation (12:00-18:00 UTC, hourly, AVI, 9846 KB)	Met-8, 03 March 2004, 17:00 UTC RGB Composite NIR1.6, VIS0.8, VIS0.6 Full Resolution (48 KB) Animation (12:45-19:00 UTC, AVI, 9144 KB)
See also: 300 hPa ECMWF model potential vorticity field (on Met-8 airmass RGB image, 3 Mar 2004, 12:00 UTC, JPG, 1029 KB) Met-6 IR image (3 Mar 2004, 12:00 UTC, GIF, 331 KB) 1000 hPa ECMWF model wind and divergence fields (on Met-8 RGB image, 3 Mar 2004, 12:00 UTC, JPG, 1419 KB) MODIS image with 2000 m resolution (3 Mar 2004, 14:15 UTC, JPG, 96 KB, source: NASA) MODIS image with 250 m resolution (3 Mar 2004, 14:15 UTC, JPG, 1213 KB, source: NASA) Picture of the dust as seen from Tenerife (3 Mar 2004, JPG, 16 KB, source: Eugenio Rodriguez) Met-8 Animation produced with METLook (3 Mar 2004, animated GIF, 4979 KB, source: Univ. of Lille)