Envirocast® On-Line Feature of the Week -- February 28, 2007

Northern Texas Dust Storm

The image in this Envirocast® Bulletin was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA's Aqua satellite on February 24, 2007.  It shows a dust storm in northern Texas that came within approximately 16 miles of hitting the Dallas metropolitan area.

Dust Storm Near Dallas

The above MODIS image shows a boomerang-shaped plume of dust sweeping across the state, narrowly missing the Dallas metropolitan area by approximately 16 miles to the east.  The storm was caused by high winds that wreaked havoc across northern Texas on February 24, 2007.

 

Environmental Impacts:

  • Downed power lines left some 37,000 homes and businesses without electricity while gusts up to 60 miles per hour fueled grass fires and kicked up dust.

  • Blowing dust reduced visibility to less than a mile in some Texas locations.

  • Fires spread by the storm destroyed three homes and forced the evacuation of the Fort Hood army base.

  • The storm also caused the cancellation of roughly 300 flights at Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport.

Supplementary Material:

NASA's AQUA Satellite:

  • Aqua, Latin for water, is a NASA Earth Science satellite mission collecting data about the Earth's water cycle, including evaporation from the oceans, water vapor in the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, and snow cover on the land and ice. The Aqua spacecraft (formally known as EOS-PM) was successfully launched on May 4, 2002 at the Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in Lompoc, California. It is flying at an altitude of 705 km (438 miles) observing the Earth, and the life expectancy is 6 years. [Aqua's Orbit], [Animation of MODIS Observing the Earth]

  • Aqua passes south to north over the equator in the afternoon, and thus it passes over us at the same local time every day, approximately 1:30 p.m.

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