Large sandstorm over Afghanistan and Pakistan
12 August 2002 00:00 UTC
On 12-13 August, a large sandstorm was observed by Meteosat-5 over the Afghanistan and Pakistan desert.
24 May 2022
12 August 2002
The storm lasted two days, covering an area the size of Ireland. The origin of the sandstorm was located in the Iran-Afghanistan border area, where strong surface winds from the north-west raised huge amounts of sand and dust particles several hundred meters into the air.
The two images below show the area of interest on two different days: before the sandstorm (left image, 11 August) and during the sandstorm (right image, 13 August). The differences in the reflectivity are clearly visible.
The image sequence above (composed of 21 visible images taken between 03:00 and 13:00 UTC) shows the movement the of sand/dust cloud, first in a south-easterly direction, around a mountain range, and then towards the north-east. It probably reached as far as the city of Kandahar. On the southern side of the sandstorm huge eddies can be observed.
The image sequence below (composed of 15 visible images taken between 03:00 and 10:00 UTC) shows the sandstorm on the previous day. A second sandstorm following the Amu Darya river and eventually blowing against the Tajikistan mountains, can be observed in the north-eastern part of the images.
