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A Dust Storm Over the Persian Gulf

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A huge dust storm blowing out of Saudi and Arabia and over the Persian Gulf on April 5, 2013..
A huge dust storm blowing out of Saudi and Arabia and over the Persian Gulf on April 5, 2013.. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

Behold a huge dust storm blowing off of Arabian Peninsula and over the Persian Gulf.

This natural-color image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite today (April 5), and featured by the NASA Earth Observatory.

Saudi Arabia has been undergoing an intense dust storm for the past two days. The storm is expected to hit the United Arab Emirates today and tomorrow, according to Emirates247.com, and is expected to create visibility of less than 500 meters (about 1,600 feet), with wind speeds of up to 40 mph (65 kph).

Email Douglas Main or follow him @Douglas_Main. Follow us @livescience,  Facebook or  Google+. Article originally on LiveScience.com.

Douglas Main
Douglas Main
Douglas Main loves the weird and wonderful world of science, digging into amazing Planet Earth discoveries and wacky animal findings (from marsupials mating themselves to death to zombie worms to tear-drinking butterflies) for Live Science. Follow Doug on Google+.
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