NOAA SATELLITE CAPTURES IRAQ SAND AND DUST STORMS

March 26, 2003 — A NOAA polar-orbiting satellite captured the intense sand and dust storms in Iraq on Wednesday. The NOAA satellite image shows widespread sand and dust storms over a large area of Iraq, including Baghdad. In addition, the same NOAA satellite earlier took an image of ‘hot spots’ in southern Iraq, which are from burning oil fields in the region. (Click NOAA image for larger view of sand storms in Iraq taken March 26, 2003, at 2:18 a.m. EST. Click here for image without annotations. Please credit “NOAA.)

The first dust storm image was produced from data taken by the NOAA-17 satellite on March 26, 2003, at 2:18 a.m. EST (10:18 a.m. Iraq local time). The image measures 1280 x 1020 pixels with NOAA annotations.

The second dust storm image was produced from data taken by the NOAA-16 satellite on March 26, 2003, at 5:38 a.m. EST (1:38 p.m. Iraq local time). The image measures 1280 x 1089 pixels with NOAA annotations. (Click NOAA image for larger view of sand storms in Iraq taken March 26, 2003, at 5:38 a.m. EST. Click here for image without annotations. Please credit “NOAA.)

The ‘hot spots’ image was taken on March 25, 2003 at 6:17 p.m. EST (2:17 a.m. Iraq local time). It measures 1280 x 1104 with NOAA annotations. (Click NOAA image for larger view of 'hot spots' from burning oil fields in southern Iraq taken March 25, 2003, at 6:17 p.m. EST. Click here for image without annotations. Please credit “NOAA.)

NOAA-16 and NOAA-17 are polar-orbiting NOAA satellites, which fly at about 520 miles above the Earth in an almost north-south orbit.

These images were processed by the NOAA Operational Significant Event Imagery, part of NOAA Satellites and Information.

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NOAA Operational Significant Event Imagery

NOAA Polar-Orbiting Satellites

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Greg Hernandez, NOAA, (202) 482-3091